Bruce D. Abramson, Ph.D., J.D.

Consulting Profile

Technology moves faster than the speed of law. A deft strategist trained in technology, law, and business can give you the edge you need to win.

Bruce D. Abramson, Ph.D., J.D. possesses a rare ability to express complex analyses in simple English. He has deployed this skill in many arenas, with a longstanding focus in expert testimony.

Prior to engaging legal and business issues, Dr. Abramson developed deep experience teaching and researching artificial intelligence (AI), big data, Bayesian modeling, statistics, and forecasting. He then deployed those skills in a variety of legal, regulatory, and public policy settings, shifting his focus into economic modeling.

His practical expertise includes valuing intellectual property and other asset classes; assessing damages and royalties; evaluating and deploying patents, products, digital copyrights, and technologies; devising growth strategies; assessing licenses and contracts; determining and predicting competitive effects and market responses; modeling and analyzing complex data; assembling and managing cross-functional teams; facilitating communication among engineering, management, and legal teams; marketing and cultivating client relationships; teaching, research, and public speaking; publishing books and articles on technology, business, and law.

Dr. Abramson has advised and/or testified as an expert witness on numerous matters spanning:

• Damages, including but not restricted to patent damages;
• Technology industry custom and practice in licensing, breach of contract, and business tort suits;
• Infringement, licensing, and damages and policy in patent, copyright, trademark, trade secret, and other IP cases;
• Technical aspects of selected soft-side technologies (software, Internet, business methods);
• The interplay between antitrust and IP laws;
• The viability of patent portfolios preceding and during enforcement actions;
• Public policy rationales and industry expectations behind contract and license clauses and language.

In each of these areas, he has worked with counsel and/or clients to devise and refine the theories necessary to conduct and present powerful analysis. He is currently more interested in advising, training, and performing analyses guiding settlement and strategy than in testifying, but he remains available to counsel in need of testimony. He is also available to serve as a mediator.

Dr. Abramson will only accept assignments if he believes that he can confer value to the client. As President of Informationism, the consultancy he founded in 2006, he is open to various fee arrangements. He often negotiates steep discounts to standard hourly rates and retainers, offering fixed-fee-for-fixed-task, advance payment arrangements. Though he has never practiced law, he maintains an active law license and will consider contingency, success, or equity arrangements for non-testifying assignments.

Dr. Abramson is also a frequent public speaker and prolific author who has contributed to the scholarly literature of Computer Science, Management Science, and Law. He has written to general-audience books to explain the interplay among new technologies, the businesses that deploy them, the laws that regulate those businesses, and the policies that guide those laws.

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Education & Registrations

• J.D. Georgetown University Law Center, 2000
• Ph.D. Computer Science, Columbia University, 1987
• M.S. Computer Science, Columbia University, 1985
• B.A. Computer Science and Mathematics, Columbia University, 1983
• Certificate in Mediation University of California, 2009
• Registered Patent Attorney United States Patent and Trademark Office, 2013

Positions & Appointments

• New College of Florida (2023–present)
  • Executive Director | New Student & Graduate Admissions
  • Executive Director | Applied Data Science Recruitment & Partnerships
• Informationism, Inc. (2004–present)
  • CEO | Strategic Counsel, Expert Witness, and Research Lead
• American Center for Education & Knowledge (2020–present)
  • Director | Public Policy Education and Research
• American Restoration Institute (2019–23)
  • Founder | Public Policy Education and Research
• JBB&A Strategies / B2 Strategic (2018–23)
  • Managing Partner | Politics, Policy, Litigation, Monetization, and Communication
• London Center for Policy Research (2015–20)
  • Senior Fellow | Foreign Policy, Domestic Policy, and Economics
• Iron Dome Alliance (2015–18)
  • Vice President | Director of Policy
• Rimon, P.C. (2011–2014)
  • Partner | IP Advisory and Litigation Services
• United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (2003-2004)
  • Clerk | Chambers of the Hon. Arthur J. Gajarsa
• Charles River Associates, Inc. / CRAI (1998-2003; 2004-2014)
  • Principal | Valuation, Antitrust, and Technology Economist (2000-2003)
  • also: Consultant, Competition (1998-2000); Senior Consultant, Competition & IP (2004-2014)
• Gordian Solutions, Inc. (1996–2000)
  • President | Economic and Technical Consultant, and Research Lead
• Carnegie Mellon University (1994–1999)
  • Research Adjunct Professor | Engineering & Public Policy
• Cambridge Research Associates, Inc. (1994-96)
  • Director | Economic and Policy Analysis, Defense Conversion
• Information Extraction and Transport, Inc. (1993-94)
  • Principal Scientist | Advanced Computing and Military Intelligence
• University of Southern California (1987-93)
  • Assistant Professor | Department Computer Science, Social Science Research Institute

Selected Accomplishments

• Devised and implemented a strategy that secured a seven figure patent infringement settlement for small inventor.
• Enabled divestiture of an asset blocking a merger valued over fifty billion dollars, securing clearance for the deal.
• Obliterated plaintiff’s damage theory in litigation, reducing client defendant’s exposure by 99%.
• Altered major oil company’s approach and behavior in political risk assessment.
• Secured an assessment of zero damages for unindicted co-conspirator in a complex price-fixing case.
• Conducted numerous analyses of patent damages, for both plaintiffs and defendants, under both Georgia Pacific and lost profits theories.
• Explained interplay among cybersquatting laws, trademarks, computer technology, and Internet business models in simple English.
• Testified as a technical infringement expert in cases disputing software copyrights and patents.
• Served as an expert witness about the custom and practice of software licensing, on matters that included indemnification clauses, royalties, and technological shifts. Provided written reports and deposition testimony that helped clients settle cases on favorable terms.
• Provided written reports, deposition and trial testimony on behalf of client assessing the damages incurred through government action diverting a trust fund from private hands.
• Served as an expert witness for a patentee whose prior litigation counsel had generated eight figure legal fees litigating infringement claims in ways that generated zero value and legal sanctions. Helped establish the existence and amount of negligence damages separate from restitution that allowed the client to settle on favorable terms with the plaintiff and its insurer.
• Served as an expert witness on the custom and practice of licensing in the software industry for a major multi-national client in a lawsuit with nine figure stakes. Submitted written expert reports and sat for a deposition. Suit settled on terms favorable to the client.
• Provided expert assistance to counsel whose trade secret claim had been deemed insufficient by the trial judge. Facilitated communication between counsel and software-engineering clients necessary to describe the secrets with reasonable particularity. Obtained stipulation from opposing party that the pleading was sufficient, and yielded the result that the client had sought.
• Performed numerous valuation and remedies calculations for litigation clients, ranging from parties dissolving small corporations to those valuing portfolios of intangible assets.
• As a consultant to the World Bank, advised the Government of India about the steps necessary to complete the reform of their patent system. Contributed to overall study of India’s knowledge economy, the state of its innovation system, and the further reforms needed for the country to transition into the information age.
• As a pro bono consultant to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, helped prepare and file an ultimately successful amicus brief in an appellate matter concerning the status of copyrighted software under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
• Helped two major consumer goods companies gain antitrust clearance to consummate a merger worth more than $50 billion.
• Advised a major research university about its internal intellectual property policy, governing the relationship among the institution, its faculty and students, and third parties with respect to the commercialization of patentable and copyrightable innovations.
• Helped a Federal Appeals Court Judge prepare a dozen legal opinions deciding cases involving patents, digital copyrights, antitrust, government contracting, veterans’ affairs, tax, takings, and personnel. Worked closely with the Judge on both substance and presentation, and helped usher the opinions through the panel process to successful publication.
• Wrote over forty bench memos to help a Federal Appeals Court Judge prepare for oral argument and decide cases relating to a broad range of legal issues in intellectual property, international trade, claims against the U.S. government, veterans affairs, personnel, and other areas of the law.
• Integrated software engineering principles into antitrust arguments forwarded to the European Commission to aid its investigation of anticompetitive behavior in the software industry.
• Investigated arguments favoring adoption of open source software by major organizations, with an emphasis on the global public sector. Advised both public and private sector clients about ways to leverage prevailing trends to effect growth.
• Provided antitrust guidance to plaintiffs’ attorneys seeking to develop a major price-fixing case from secret documentary evidence.
• Served as key economic advisor to lead litigation counsel in a complex antitrust matter. Client was rapidly losing market share to larger competitors who were vertically integrating into client’s market niche. Client was simultaneously engaged in a struggle to restructure its business model, business tort and antitrust litigation with one competitor, and merger negotiations with another competitor.
• Advised counsel supporting a contested Internet merger about the varying economic theories of the Internet. Demonstrated the differing interpretations of those theories appropriate during and after the Internet equity bubble.
• Designated as an expert witness in several litigation matters involving software and Internet firms. Provided counsel with insights into the nature of reasonable behavior inside the Internet bubble economy. Detailed the steps necessary to detect infringement of software, and the ways that such analyses differ in patent, copyright, and trade secret cases.
• Testified on behalf of a client about the implications of Bayesian analysis and value of information calculations to consumer purchase decisions in advertising.
• Advised a client with substantial market power in an old-line industry about the interrelationship between business models and antitrust exposure in the Internet economy. Helped configure final pre-launch projections and prices for the client’s Web product.
• Assisted several Internet and software startups in the development of their preliminary business plans. Stressed the need for realistic forecasts of adoption rates and revenue models.
• Weighed the federal interest in unencumbered markets against a State’s rights and interests in the regulation of alcohol on behalf of a client seeking to change state liquor laws.
• Coordinated the economic analyses and data management tasks for unindicted price fixing co-conspirator. Analyzed the relationships among alleged behavior, transactional data, and antitrust and trade law. Jury found client liable but assessed zero damages.
• Modeled and simulated the interrelationships among pending environmental regulations, engineering technology, energy demand, and real options markets. Guided client electric utility’s decisions about capital investments exceeding a half-billion dollars.

Selected Cases

• For a plaintiff—assessed damages in a government contracting case, and explained why the government’s theory of damages was completely misplaced. Tribunal rejected government’s theory of damages in an interim ruling that motivated settlement on terms favorable to client.
• For a respondent—explained why the ITC should exempt client from enforcement of a 337 action, even if other respondents were found to be in violation. ITC ruled that enforcement against client was inappropriate and unwarranted.
• For a plaintiff—explained the policy driving laws against cybersquatting, the damage that cybersquatting can impose upon trademark owners, and the technology and economics underlying defendant’s business. Client won favorable summary judgment rulings on several key issues.
• For a defendant—conducted detailed lost-profits and Georgia Pacific analyses in a patent infringement suit. Demonstrated fundamental inconsistencies in defendant’s lost profits claim, and significant errors in defendant’s Georgia Pacific analysis.
• For a plaintiff—devised damage theory and assessed damages in a malpractice suit against client's former patent counsel. Was instrumental in showing that significant damages falling within the defendant's insurance coverage were at stake. Secured participation of insurance carrier in settlement discussions that resulted in a payment that client considered favorable.
• For a defendant—conducted a detailed Georgia Pacific analysis circumscribing the reasonable royalties at stake in a patent infringement suit. Established significant limitations on the maximum amount that plaintiff could recover.
• For a plaintiff—testified as an expert witness about the custom and practice of indemnification clauses in software licenses. Client was a large bank accused of patent infringement. Defendant was a major multinational software vendor. Suit settled on terms that the client considered favorable.
• For a defendant—testified as an expert witness about the implication of dual- and multi-core processor technology to pre-existing software contracts. Client was a major global insurance company. Plaintiff was a large software vendor. Suit settled on terms that the client considered favorable.
• For a plaintiff—testified as an expert witness about the damages incurred through government action diverting a trust fund from private hands. Client was a multinational corporation. Defendant was the U.S. Government. Work included a full day on the stand testifying at trial.
• For a defendant—testified as an expert witness about damages methodology in the calculation of royalties under a software contract. Client was a major software company. Plaintiff was a technology company. Trial ended with client paying minimal damages.
• For a plaintiff—testified as an expert witness about damages attributable to negligence in the strategic exploitation of a patent. Plaintiff was a patentee. Defendant was former patent litigation counsel. Suit settled on terms that the client considered favorable.
• For a defendant—testified as an expert witness about the custom and practice of software licensing. Client was a major multinational serving as prime contractor on a foreign government contract. Plaintiff was a subcontractor seeking nine figure damages on an infringement claim. Suit settled on terms that the client considered favorable.
• For a plaintiff—calculated damages due from a government agency under quasi-contract and takings theories. Client was a major supplier with an ongoing, mission-critical relationship with the agency. Suit settled in the mid-six figures to the satisfaction of the client, and in a manner that preserved the working relationship.
• For a defendant—coordinated the economic damage analyses on behalf of an unindicted co-conspirator in a civil antitrust case. Indictments had already led to criminal fines and convictions of other co-conspirators. Jury in civil case found client liable but assessed zero damages.
• For a plaintiff—provided antitrust guidance to plaintiffs’ attorneys seeking to develop a major price-fixing case from secret documentary evidence. Later developments eventually established both civil and criminal liability for defendants.
• For a defendant—served as key economic advisor to lead litigation counsel in a complex antitrust matter involving client’s entire franchise model. Client was rapidly losing market share to larger competitors who were vertically integrating into client’s market niche. Client was simultaneously engaged in a struggle to restructure its business model, business tort and antitrust litigation with one competitor, and merger negotiations with another competitor. Assistance eventually preserved the franchise model and helped client realign its business for the future.
• For a plaintiff—coordinated data intensive analyses relating alcohol consumption and taxation. Client was a distributor challenging state monopoly licenses on the sale of alcohol. Weighed the federal interest in unencumbered markets against a State’s rights and interests in the regulation of alcohol on behalf of a client seeking to change state liquor laws. Courts ruled in favor of client, and found the relevant legislation unconstitutional.
• For a defendant—testified about the implication of Bayesian analysis and value of information calculations to consumer purchase decisions in advertising. Client was accused of making insufficiently substantiated claims in its advertising. Investigating agency dropped the matter after little further inquiry.
• For a petitioner—integrated software engineering principles and data intensive economic analyses into antitrust arguments forwarded to the European Commission to aid its investigation of anticompetitive behavior in the software industry. Inquiry eventually led to significant penalty assessment based, in part, on the submitted evidence and analysis.