Gabriel E. Meister is a partner in the Technology Transactions Group in the New York office of Morrison & Foerster, and a member of the firm’s Global Sourcing Group.

Mr. Meister has substantial experience in a wide variety of high technology and intellectual property-related transactions. His practice is focused on large-scale outsourcing deals, including IT and business process outsourcing (both offshore and onshore), he has considerable knowledge of a broad range of technologies and industries, including computer software and hardware, traditional media and new media, entertainment and content licensing, Internet and e-commerce, biotechnology and life sciences, telecommunications, financial institutions, and emerging technologies. Mr. Meister also has extensive experience in counseling clients on intellectual property issues in the context of mergers, acquisitions, and other large corporate transactions.

Mr. Meister received his B.A. in biology, magna cum laude, in 1993 from Brown University, where he was elected to Sigma Xi, and his J.D., cum laude, in 1998 from Harvard Law School, where he served as an affiliate of Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society. Prior to law school, Mr. Meister assisted in the design and conduct of innovative bioinformatics and immunology research projects at Brown University’s TB/HIV Research Laboratory.

Mr. Meister has presented on a variety of subjects at the intersection of technology and the law, including, most recently, at the University of Texas’ 20th Annual Technology Law conference concerning key copyright and other legal developments in digital media and content. He is the co-author of “Confronting IP Issues in Outsourcing Deals,” which appeared in the New York Law Journal’s Intellectual Property supplement in 2004.

Mr. Meister joined the New York office of Morrison & Foerster in 1998 and is a member of the American Bar Association and the New York State Bar Association. He is admitted to practice law in New York.

Representative Matters

• Represented a major entertainment company in its global ADM outsourcing transaction with Infosys Technologies Limited.
• Represented Lenovo (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Lenovo Group Limited, in its worldwide, $600 million, seven-year IT outsourcing services agreement with International Business Machines Corporation (IBM).
• Represented Lenovo (Singapore) Pte. Ltd. in its 65-country, multi-year HR outsourcing transaction with IBM.
• Represented Warner/Elektra/Atlantic Corp., Warner Music Group’s United States sales and retail distribution company, in its agreement with Abandon Interactive Entertainment to market and distribute “Freaky Creatures,” one of the world’s first player-customized, cross-platform, multi-player game universes for the “tween” demographic.
• Represented Kirin Brewery Company’s pharmaceutical division in several different research, development, and marketing collaborations with United States biotechnology companies.
• Represented NYU Hospitals Center in connection with its separation of IT operations from Mount Sinai Hospitals and NYU Downtown Hospital, and the joint outsourcing of IT operations by the hospitals to IBM. The overall outsourcing deal was reportedly valued at $380 million.
• Represented Hitachi Ltd. in connection with the outsourcing of IT operations to IBM by the hard-disk drive division acquired by Hitachi from IBM for $2 billion at the end of 2002. The outsourcing transaction involved the entire IT operations of the division in eight different jurisdictions (the United States, Japan, China, Singapore, Philippines, Germany, Mexico and Thailand), and involved highly complex intellectual property transfers resulting, in part, from the simultaneous sale of the division and commencement of outsourced services.