<p>Joseph M. Burton is the managing partner of Duane Morris' San Francisco office. Mr. Burton concentrates his practice in complex civil, criminal and appellate litigation. He is nationally recognized in the emerging field of Information Security Law where he advises and represents individuals and corporations regarding their rights and responsibilities in maintaining the security of digital information. His practice includes trade secret, trademark and patent litigation with an emphasis in cybercrime and cybersecurity matters. Mr. Burton is a former Assistant United States Attorney and Chief of the Silicon Valley Office for the Northern District of California where he handled several pioneering high technology investigations and prosecutions, including the first prosecution in the nation for criminal copyright infringement of computer code.
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As a defense counsel, Mr. Burton represented one of the targets of the first criminal investigation into the export, by computer, of cryptography programs. He successfully defended ElcomSoft Co. in a landmark case involving the first criminal prosecution of a software company under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Mr. Burton is a member of the White Collar Crime and Complex Crimes committees of the Section of Litigation of the American Bar Association, and former chair of the Computer Crime Subcommittee. He is also a member of the Federal Bar Association and the Charles Houston Bar Association.