From Silicon Valley to War Zones: How Feras Mousilli Advocates for Startups and Tech Giants Globally

An Interview with Feras Mousilli, Managing Partner of Lloyd & Mousilli

TechBullion recently had the opportunity to catch up with Dr. Feras Mousilli, the Managing Partner of Lloyd & Mousilli, an international boutique law firm specialising in intellectual property and technology law, with a focus on startups. The following is an excerpt from an interview that our Editorial Staff conducted in Autumn 2024. 

Dr. Mousilli, great to catch you between your busy international itinerary. Lloyd & Mousilli had quite the banner year and your client deals have made headlines around the world. Can you give us some insight into your firm’s work with international startups?

It’s been a fantastic year for the firm and our international clients. Whether it’s a Croatian drone tech startup like Orqa or a Silicon Valley Artificial Intelligence generated video leader like Tavus,  Lloyd & Mousilli’s focus has always been to provide comprehensive legal support to startups, with a focus on technology transactions and intellectual property matters. We specialize in counseling startups through international expansion, with lawyers strategically located across the U.S., as well as in Medellín, Colombia, Kyiv, Ukraine and most recently, Istanbul, Turkiye. Many of our clients approach us at the pre-launch or early stages of their journey, giving us the opportunity to help them build a strong foundation through services like corporate structuring, contract drafting, and IP protection strategies. Our distributed team model enables us to serve clients globally, breaking down barriers typically associated with more conventional law firms and has earned L&M recognition by Chambers.

You mentioned Ukraine – who’s doing business there? We also noted from your profile that you’re a Fulbright Professor and taught in Ukraine, what’s an American lawyer doing in a war zone?

Ukraine has long been a country very dear to me since my first visit in 2014 during the Euro Maidan revolution. L&M has a long history of representing Ukrainian startups, like Preply and Mosqitter and many others. In 2020, I was nominated for and granted a Fulbright Specialist Award to teach intellectual property and technology law as a visiting professor in Europe. 

I began teaching IP and technology commercialization courses at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, The National Technical University of Ukraine Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute (KPI), and the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. The courses focused on developing intellectual property strategies for patents and trademarks, building patent portfolios, software licensing, and commercialization of inventions and business ideas. Unfortunately, with the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. State Department ordered all US personnel to evacuate the country in 2022. Our firm has continued to represent startups in Ukraine’s war zones, from Donoetsk to Kharkiv and just recently successfully prosecuted a patent for a water ionization technology where the founder was MIA in the contested territories. Personally, I also continue to teach university law classes, albeit online.

Very inspiring that Lloyd & Mousilli is able to operate and support startups in war zones like Ukraine. Can you tell us more about being a Fulbright Specialist and what the program entails?

The Fulbright Specialist Program connects established U.S. academics and experts with institutions abroad to develop institutional relationships, learn about other cultures, and contribute their knowledge through research and teaching. Fulbright specialists are competitively selected from a vast range of professional disciplines based on significant experience in their respective fields, as well as rigorous ethical and character fitness. I am considered an expert in the field of intellectual property and technology law.

After Ukraine, I was then offered another visiting professorship through the Fulbright program in 2023 at University Tecnologico de Antioquia in Medellín, Colombia. 

During my time at Tecnologico de Antioquia, my primary focus was on researching and lecturing about the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Colombia. This concentration included contributing to the university’s academic curriculum revisions to better incorporate IP and technology commercialization content, as well as authoring a data-based report and presentation about the state of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Colombia.

I also organized the university’s first-ever business startup pitch competition, sponsored by Lloyd & Mousilli, where I trained participating student teams to effectively present their businesses to potential investors.

You mentioned that you recently opened an office in Istanbul, Turkey. Congratulations on the new office in the old world! Can you provide insight into what led to that decision?

The decision to establish a base for Lloyd & Mousilli in Istanbul is both personal and strategic. Turkey has a thriving economy, a growing entrepreneurial ecosystem, and immense potential for cross-border collaboration. Our new law firm office in Nişantaşı represents our commitment to fostering innovation and supporting businesses in the region. 

L&M has long advised U.S. clients on Turkish trademark and other intellectual property matters, leveraging our knowledge of the Turkish legal system and familiarity with Turkey’s startup ecosystem. The new Istanbul office will serve as a bridge for businesses navigating cross-border opportunities between Türkiye and the United States, as well as across the Middle East and Central Asia. 

These international startup stories are remarkable, but we are curious how it all started in Silicon Valley. Can you tell us about your time at Apple and your work there?

Being a lawyer for Apple was the ultimate dream job for a technology lawyer. It was an interesting journey for me, since I was recruited from my role at Dell by Apple to serve as Special Projects Counsel on a special, and at the time, unreleased secret project. As it turned out, I would serve as the original lawyer on the Apple Watch – the most personal computer that Apple ever launched. While I didn’t realize it at the time, the Apple recruiters had been keenly interested in my degrees in Biomedical Engineering and Computer Science Engineering from Johns Hopkins University. It made sense given all the biometric and health data and technology that is packed into the device. In addition to the Apple Watch, as Senior Corporate Counsel at Apple, I advised on the entire gamut of product development and intellectual property matters. This included advertising, marketing, copyright, and trademark strategies and risks. I was also responsible for the Made For iOS (“MFi”) ecosystem – CarPlay, HomeKit, AirPlay – basically the legal support for the technical specifications and resources needed to create accessories that communicate with Apple devices using MFi technologies and components. 

While it was very stimulating to work for tech giants Apple and Dell, I found that I was drawn more towards working with early stage companies and startups. We have a real love for founders and the energy that they bring to their startups. We jokingly refer to the team at Lloyd & Mousilli as “nerds & geeks” – everyone is super nerdy and passionate about their subject matter and they bring an academic rigor to solving these real world problems on behalf of our clients. We realize that for these startups, everything needs to align for their success and we are simply delighted to be a partner to their business. 

Deeply motivating. Any closing words of advice to startups or first time founders?

Being a startup founder is a fundamentally irrational path. The odds are stacked against you- statistically most startups fail. But for those founders that do it anyway, they are driven by a grander vision – a passion that fuels them to pursue the idea anyway. Like our client Deepen that is trying to change the future through autonomous vehicles or AiXplain that wants to democratize artificial intelligence, these visions are life changing for humanity. My advice to these founders is to make sure you surround yourself with people that can fuel your drive and share your enthusiasm to make positive changes. Your legal advisor has to not only share your vision, but also needs to align on your risk tolerance, as well. Find a lawyer that focuses on the solutions when everyone else is caught up in the problems.