John Gary Maynard, III

Co-head of the firm’s intellectual property practice, John Gary has 30 years of experience with broad-based IP matters and software litigation, and is recognized year after year as an industry leader by ranking and other publications, including Chambers, Legal 500, and Best Lawyers. Clients have told Chambers that he “diligently guid[es] the Hunton team to effective and thorough representation” (2025) and “provides a very strong service” (2023), and Legal 500 that he is “always informative, helpful, and clear” (2023). World Trademark Review 1000 calls him a ”well-rounded practitioner who is equally brilliant across the contentious/non-contentious divide” (2024), notes that he “knows how to get things done” (2023), and has said he exhibits “keen awareness of the evolving social media scene and the issues it presents for innovative brand owners” (2022). And Legal 500 recognizes that he “is considerably experienced on the software litigation side” (2025).

John Gary is a well-rounded IP practitioner, but focuses on counseling the world’s leading companies on how to protect their brands. He advises on trademark and design matters; copyright issues, including in the context of artificial intelligence (AI); online enforcement, including domain name counseling and litigation under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP); trade secret protection; IP asset licensing; and litigation under the Lanham Act and the Copyright Act. John Gary also has carved a niche for himself in the practice of software audits. He has significant experience helping both licensees and licensors manage software audits, disputes, and license compliance reviews.

Brand Protection

• Develops, implements, and manages global trademark prosecution, maintenance, and enforcement programs—including strategy for social media—for Fortune 1000 companies in a variety of industries, including well-known financial institutions, retailers, a major airline, and a large chemical company, under both hourly and alternative fee arrangements.
• Represents Fortune 1000 companies in brand protection disputes, including trials in federal court, injunction hearings, mediations, and proceedings before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB).
• Convinced court to deny petition for a temporary restraining order (TRO) in an action involving trade dress packaging for a retail product.
• Regularly counsels clients on proactive and reactive trade secret and other intellectual property protection, including cases involving information security and business partner agreements.
• Regularly counsels major retailer on advertising issues.
• Assisted well-known academic medical institution in co-branding transaction involving the use of proprietary cancer treatment technology.
• Served as trademark counsel to the board of an IP holding company for a Fortune 1000 company.
• Developed holistic and client-specific trade secret protection and overall IP protection programs for Fortune 200 company and provided training and follow-up for implementation and maintenance. Programs included physical safeguards, premises controls, computer-use policies, document management procedures, and policies governing employees and visitors.

Software Audits and Litigation

• Counseled clients in software license audits resulting in savings of more than $150 million from initial compliance demands, including:
  • Persuaded TIBCO to drop $500k over-deployment claim for mainframe software after reviewing licenses and audit history and determining that claim was released as part of a prior audit settlement.
  • Settled $12.5 million claim for over-deployment of OpenText connectivity software for less than 30 cents on the dollar by identifying ambiguity in license language and exploiting vendor’s year-end revenue deadline.
  • Negotiated 50% reduction in IBM compliance demand where IT staff did not properly uninstall e-commerce software after transitioning to another platform.
  • Resolved $725k claim for over-deployment of Informatica software by negotiating upgrade from legacy perpetual licenses to pre-paid SaaS subscription that client planned to implement anyway.
  • Persuaded OpenText to drop $300k over-deployment claim where public school system purchased but rarely used EnCase end-point security software by identifying ambiguity is license metric language.
  • Assisted IT staff in complying with IBM audit requests addressing sub-capacity issues and ultimately resolving audit with purchase of previously planned software upgrades.
  • Resolved VMware audit of non-profit hospital network with no adverse findings where IT staff responded to audit inquiry with sufficient data to confirm compliance but vendor persisted with overbroad data requests.
• Represented major retailer in litigation of copyright infringement and breach of contract matter arising from a software audit, reaching favorable settlement.
• Represented major gaming software vendor in copyright infringement and breach of contract matter, obtaining favorable jury verdict after three-week trial.

• Recognized as a Leader in Intellectual Property in Southern Virginia (2017-2018, 2020-2025), Chambers USA
• Recognized as a Leading Trademark Professional in Enforcement & Litigation and Prosecution & Strategy in Washington, DC (2020-2025), World Trademark Review 1000
• Recognized as a Trademark Star in the IP STARS Handbook (2025), Managing Intellectual Property
• Recommended for Trademarks: Litigation (2020-2025), Trademarks: Non-Contentious (2020-2025), Patents: Licensing (2020-2021, 2025), and Patents: Litigation (Full Coverage) (2020), Legal 500 United States
• Recognized as a Best Lawyer for Trademark Law (2023-2024) and Litigation – Intellectual Property (2015-2024), The Best Lawyers in America
• Named among the Legal Elite for Intellectual Property/Information Technology Law (2022), Virginia Business
• Named among the Top Forty Under 40 (2008), Style Weekly

• Member, The International Trademark Association (INTA)