Gwyn Firth Murray
Gwyn Firth Murray is an experienced attorney offering a wide range of cost-effective legal services to both start-up and established companies in the high tech and biotech industries. Gwyn has spent over twenty years working as inside and outside counsel to computer hardware, computer software and pharmaceutical companies, and she has extensive expertise in commercial, transactional, licensing and general corporate arenas.. Gwyn’s specialty is advising emerging and established companies on matters relating to Free (Libre) and Open Source Software, digital content sharing via the world wide web, and technology licensing generally. She also enjoys working as outside general counsel for companies that, given their level of maturity and/or budget constraints, cannot employ full-time internal counsel. Gwyn has extensive international experience and is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese.
Professional Background
Prior to creating the Matau Legal Group in 2002, Gwyn served as General Counsel and Vice President, Legal Affairs for Kanisa Inc., a privately-held software company based in Cupertino, California. At Kanisa, she managed all legal matters of the company, including structuring and negotiating complex software licensing and services agreements with Fortune 100 companies; designing and implementing the company's intellectual property strategy, including a robust patent and trademark portfolio; providing advice to management and the Board of Directors on legal strategy, corporate governance and securities matters; advising on merger and acquisition transactions; advising and training employees on employment, ethics and other matters; reviewing and advising on press and other external communications; negotiating real estate leases; managing the company's litigation strategy; and selecting and managing outside counsel.
Before joining Kanisa, Gwyn founded and built the legal department at VA Linux Systems, Inc. (now SourceForge). At VA, Gwyn oversaw all legal matters of the company, providing advice to management and the Board of Directors on corporate governance and securities matters; advising on merger and acquisition transactions; structuring and implementing international operations, joint ventures and commercial transactions; designing and implementing company policies; developing company’s strategy on intellectual property management and open-source software development; hiring and managing attorneys and legal staff; and advising on a variety of other issues including employment, real estate and litigation matters.
Before she joined VA Linux Systems, Gwyn spent four and one-half years at SGI, where she supervised the worldwide legal affairs of SGI Global Services, SGI’s professional services and technical support division with over $700 million in annual revenues. Prior to that, she was chief Legal Counsel to SGI’s Americas International group, where she managed all legal affairs of SGI’s subsidiaries and branch offices, as well as agreements with distributors and dealers, throughout Latin America and Canada.
Earlier in her career, Gwyn worked as a Corporate Attorney at ALZA Corporation, Apple Computer, Inc. and at Arnold & Porter in Washington, D.C.
Educational
Gwyn is a graduate of Stanford University Law School, and also holds an M.A. in Latin American Studies from Stanford University. She obtained her B.A. magna cum laude and with distinction in economics from Yale University.
Admissions
State Bar of California
District of Columbia Bar (inactive)
United States Court of International Trade
District of Columbia Court of Appeals
United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
Professional Affiliations and Community Service
Gwyn is co-founder and member of the Board of Directors of Open Bar, Inc. a not-for-profit organization created by legal professionals working in the open source and free software arenas. Open Bar was founded to help (i) develop clear information about the legal rights and responsibilities of software developers, legal professionals and users of software in the emerging arena of open source/free software; and (ii) educate software developers, legal professionals and the general public about the issues, rights and responsibilities associated with the development, use and distribution of open source/free software. For more information about Open Bar, click here: www.open-bar.org.
Gwyn is a co-founder and member of the Board of Directors of the Idea Parlor, Inc., a not-for-profit organization established with the goal of nurturing ideas into inventions. The Idea Parlor reaches out to all individuals, groups and organizations; those new to inventing or not; whether independents or part of an organization/company: in all cases to help evolve creative ideas into tangible inventions. The Idea Parlor is a nurturing and fun environment dedicated to bringing whims and serious thoughts into the realm of potentially patentable inventions and to promote public awareness about the steps to identifying an invention and techniques to make it happen. For more information about the Idea Parlor, click here: www.ideaparlor.org.
Gwyn has served in leadership positions on various other Boards of Directors in the past, including that of Bay Area Adoption Services ("BAAS"), a parent-led, non-profit, international adoption agency. BAAS’ mission is to find and support loving and able parents for orphaned, abandoned or relinquished children worldwide, with each child's welfare as BAAS' primary concern. To learn more about BAAS, click here: www.baas.org.