David Simantob (Partner-Los Angeles) and Katherine Tammaro (Partner-New Jersey) prevailed before the U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, which ruled their insurer client does not have to pay insured’s costs to defend a suit alleging she beached her contract with a licensing partner, agreeing with a lower court that a policy exclusion for intellectual property claims clearly bars coverage. The Second Circuit agreed that the exclusion must be read broadly to encompass any suits that even allude to IP violations. In the underlying case, the court noted that the insured and several affiliated entities repeatedly “used, displayed and otherwise exploited the purchased IP” without authorization. That count is “premised entirely on alleged trademark infringement” according to the panel. “Thus, we conclude that the complaint in the [underlying] suit alleges an IP violation,” the panel held, thereby implicating the exclusion.