Chicago IP Attorney & Lawyer : R. David Donoghue : Chicago IP Litigation Blog

Father Robert Drinan, S.J. died on Sunday.  Father Drinan was a founder of modern (post-Watergate) legal ethics and a colorful, important character in American political history, having been a member of the House Judiciary Committee during the Nixon impeachment proceedings and an outspoken critic of American activities in Vietnam and Cambodia while he was in Congress.  Father Drinan was also a professor at Boston College (actually the Dean) and then at Georgetown.  While getting my JD at Georgetown, I was blessed to spend a considerable amount of time with Fr. Drinan as an Editor on the Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics, created by Fr. Drinan and still the only ethics journal in the country, and when I took several of his classes, including his Advanced Legal Ethics Seminar.  Fr. Drinan loved teaching and he had an endless supply of experience from which to teach. 

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Junction Solutions, LLC v. MBS DEV, Inc., No. 06 C 1632, 2007 WL 114306 (N.D. Ill. Jan. 9, 2007) (Gottschall, J.).

Judge Gottschall denied defendants' motion to dismiss plaintiff's, Junction Solutions, trade secret and tortious interference case for lack of venue and denied plaintiff's motion to remand the case to Cook County Circuit Court, from where defendants removed the case.  Individual defendants, Jeffrey Ernest, Mitch Tucker and Kenneth Paul, were plaintiff's employees and helped it develop it its Junction Multi-Channel Distribution Software ("JMCD Software").  Shortly after developing the JMCD Software, the individual defendants left Junction Solutions and joined its competitor MBS DEV.  MBS DEV then began marketing software that competed with the JMCD Software.  Junction Solutions sued MBS DEV in the District of Colorado in 2004.  The parties eventually settled that case, a settlement which was also signed by the individual defendants.  In 2006, MBS partnered with Iteration2 and again began planning to market a software product very similar to the JMCD Software.  In response, plaintiff filed the instant suit in Cook County Circuit Court and defendants removed it to the Northern District.

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Top Tobacco, L.P. v. North Atl. Operating Co., No. 06 C 950, 2007 WL 118527 (N.D. Ill. Jan. 4, 2007) (Kennelly, J.).

Judge Kennelly granted summary judgment for defendants on plaintiff's trademark, unfair competition and dilution claims.  Plaintiffs, Top Tobacco and Republic Tobacco ( collectively "Top Tobacco ") own various trademarks associating the word "top" or a picture of a toy top with tobacco products.  Both Top Tobacco and defendant, North Atlantic Operating and National Tobacco Company ("National Tobacco"), are large players in the "make your own" and "roll your own" cigarette market.  Top Tobacco alleged that its Top marks were infringed and diluted by National Tobacco's use of its "Fresh-Top Canister" mark.  The Court granted summary judgment of non-infringement because it ruled that no reasonable jury could find that consumers were confused between Top Tobacco's TOP mark and National Tobacco's "Fresh-Top Canister" mark.  The Court held that they were visually distinct and cited Top Tobacco's remarks to the USPTO during prosecution of its marks that its TOP marks were visually distinct from marks relating to lids, as does the National Tobacco mark.  Additionally, the Court noted that Top Tobacco had chosen not to present a consumer survey to show actual confusion and did not explain why no survey was done.

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Don't forget that tomorrow is the first day of the 2007 Chicago IP Colloquium.  Professor Glynn Lunney of Tulane University Law School will be discussing Copyright as a Coordinating Mechanism starting at 4:10 in Room 305 of the Kent Law School.  It should be a great presentation.

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For the last week or two, many of the big New York City law firms have been raising associate salaries -- a $15k bump for young associates and a $20k bump for more senior ones -- raising starting salaries to $160,000 for first year associates.  It has not hit Chicago directly yet, but the Tribune ran a front page article on it Sunday, Raising The Bar For Legal Salaries.  Several large Chicago firms asked to comment for the story all said "they were still discussing the issue and had not made a decision on whether to raise salaries."

If you want more information on the raises, check out the excellent coverage at Above The Law (an entertaining site by former AUSA and creator of Underneath Their Robes David Lat) and The WSJ Blog.

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Judge Pallmeyer, as the Chair of Northern District's Historical Association, sent a letter to the Chicago Association of Law Libraries seeking any historical information about the Court and significant cases before it that local firms or practitioners may have in their archives.  Here is Judge Pallmeyer's request in her own words:

We are aware that some of the local law firms themselves maintain archives that might relate to our court's history.  Might your firm maintain such an archive?  If you have retained materials that might be of interest to our Association, would you please contact me?  One of the members of our Association, or a legal historian who is working with us, would very much appreciate the opportunity to review them.  I can be reached at (312) 435-5636 or by e-mail CourtHistory_ILND@ilnd.uscourts.gov.

If you have something, send it on and let them know you saw the request here.

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Black & Decker Inc. v. Robert Bosch Tool Corp., No. 04 C 7955, 2006 WL 3883937 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 27, 2006) (St. Eve, J.).

Judge St. Eve denied defendant's emergency motion to prohibit plaintiff from sending Rule 65(d) notice letters regarding the Court’s permanent injunction to defendant’s customers (more on this case and the injunction in the Blog's archives). But before analyzing defendant’s emergency motion, the Court first addressed defendant’s prior motion to clarify the injunction which the Court previously denied. In the motion to clarify, defendant stated that it had sold approximately 150,000 infringing radios to various resellers prior to being enjoined. Defendant argued that those resellers should be free to sell their supplies of infringing radios. The Court denied the motion because it was first raised in a sur-reply brief regarding plaintiff’s motion for a permanent injunction without presentation of any detailed facts, legal argument or supporting case law. 

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Black & Decker Inc. v. Robert Bosch Tool Corp., No. 04 C 7955, 2006 WL 3883286 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 18, 2006) (St. Eve, J.).*

Judge St. Eve denied defendant's motion for vacature of a lost profits award and for a new trial.  First, defendant argued that the jury's finding that it induced infringement could not stand because it shipped the product at issue with an AC power cord (non-infringing) and a battery (infringing), but plaintiff had not shown that each individual sale of a product resulted in an infringing use.  Prior to trial defendant argued that plaintiff must show a one-to-one correspondence between each unit sold and a customer's direct infringement citing Chiuminatta concrete Concepts, Inc. v. Cardinal Indus., Inc., 1 Fed. Appx. 879 (Fed. Cir. 2001) (unpublished op.).  The Court denied that argument.  In its post-trial motion, defendant argued that proof of sales is not sufficient for an award of induced infringement citing Golden Blount, Inc. v. Robert H. Peterson Co., 438 F.3d 1354 (Fed. Cir. 2006).  But the Court distinguished Golden Blount because the issue in that case was that some product was returned to the alleged infringer before being assembled into an infringing product, which may or may not have been sold.  There was no induced infringement because the product at issue may never have been sold.  In the instant case, the Court held that the product with the infringing configuration had been sold and, therefore, upheld the jury's finding of induced infringement.

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Black & Decker Inc. v. Robert Bosch Tool Corp., No. 04 C 7955, 2006 WL 3883919 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 7, 2006) (St. Eve, J.).

This is Judge St. Eve's permanent injunction order (numerous opinions from this case and its resulting jury trial have been analyzed in the Blog and can be found in the Blog's archives).  The injunction is notable for its thoroughness, in describing both the claims at issue and the enjoined products or classes of products.  The order even includes electrical schematics of a portion of the enjoined invention.

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Wednesday, February 7 is IP Day in Chicago.  This annual event at Loyola (where I previously taught Legal Writing) will focus on a hot topic for IP litigators -- the Supreme Court's recent active role in defining intellectual property law.  You can see from the event brochure that the day is full of great speakers focused on very interesting topics.  Of special note, John Whealan, the USPTO's Deputy General Counsel for IP and Solicitor, is giving the key note speech.  I have heard Mr. Whealan speak on several occasions and can confirm that he is an excellent speaker who always provides a very interesting and thoughtful perspective on any issue he addresses.  This is an event that you should not miss.  I certainly will not miss it, if you see me there please say "hello."

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Black & Decker v. Robert Bosch Tool Corp., No. 04 C 7955, 2006 WL 3883921 (N.D. Ill. Nov. 20, 2006) (St. Eve, J.).

Judge St. Eve's latest opinion in this patent dispute awarded plaintiff its costs pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. Pro. 54(d) over defendant's objection that plaintiff's alleged misconduct.  My analysis of Judge St. Eve's opinion which analyzed defendant's misconduct allegations, as well as opinions addressing numerous other aspects of this case and the resulting trial, can be found in the Blog's archives.  In response to defendant's allegations of misconduct, the Court cited her previous opinion finding that there was no misconduct and noted that counsel for both parties "exhibited rigorous advocacy on behalf of their clients."  The remainder of the opinion determined which requested fees were appropriate.  It serves as an excellent primer on what fees will be paid in the Northern District and what acceptable charges are for those fees.

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A recent post complimenting The Blog by Mike Atkins at the Seattle Trademark Lawyer Blog (thanks Mike) jump started a post I had been planning for a while.  There are a growing number of blogs following IP issues in different regions of the country (and world), what Mike refers to as our "cousin" blogs.  So, here a list of the regional IP blogs that I know about.  All of them offer interesting content, much of  which is useful beyond their home regions:

If you know of other regional IP blogs, post a comment or send me an email (dave.donoghue@yahoo.com) and I will add them to the list.

*The Florida IP Blog is another blog developed and hosted by LexBlog just like this Blog and, as usual, it is a great looking site with easy navigation.

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Chicago-Kent College of Law and Loyola University Chicago School of Law  (where I previously served as an Adjunct Professor of Legal Writing) are jointly sponsoring and hosting the Chicago Intellectual Property Colloquium.  The Colloquium brings six nationally renowned IP scholars to Chicago to discuss their current IP research. The presentations look very interesting.  They start January 30th and run through April on Tuesday afternoons (schedule after the jump).  Each lasts just under two hours and they rotate between Kent and Loyola.  

Attendance is by invitation only.  If you would like an invitation, contact Patricia O'Neal at Kent -- poneal@kentlaw.edu.  I will be attending as many as I can and blogging about them afterward.  If you see me, please say "hello."

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Abbott Labs. v. Andrx Pharm., Inc., No. 06-1101, __ F.3d __ (Fed. Cir. 2007).

While this is not a Northern District case, it is relevant to the Blog because it is an appeal of a Northern District case and because it confirms Judge Coar's ruling (discussed here) that a preliminary injunction holding lacked preclusive effect in the related case Abbott Labs. v. Sandoz, Inc., No. 05 C 5373, 2006 WL 3718025 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 15, 2006).  In this patent dispute plaintiff, Abbott Laboratories ("Abbott"), alleged that defendant's, Andrx Pharmacueticals ("Andrx") sale of a generic form of Abbott's patented extended release antibiotic (clarithromycin, an erythromycin derivative) which Abbott markets as Biaxin XL.  The Northern District held that Abbott had established a likelihood of success on the merits of its infringement claim and that Andrx had not established a likelihood that the patent would be held invalid.  As a result of those holdings, the Northern District issued a preliminary injunction.  In its appeal, Andrx argued that Abbott was precluded from obtaining a preliminary injunction because the Federal Circuit overturned a previous Northern District preliminary injunction for Abbott against another generic antibiotic producer Teva Pharmaceuticals ("Teva").  In that case, the Federal Circuit held that Teva raised a substantial question as to the validity of the claims at issue, sufficient to call Abbott's likelihood of success on the merits into question. 

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Goss Int'l Am., Inc. v. K & M Newspaper Serves., Inc., __ F. Supp.2d __, 2006 L 3883318 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 29, 2006) (Colon, J.).

In this claim construction opinion, Judge Colon considered several issues regarding whether "means" terms were actually means plus function terms.  The patented technology at issue is "inserts" which are machines that insert advertising materials into newspapers at specific locations within the newspaper.  The Court first held that "article feeder means" was no means plus function language governed by Section 112, para. 6.  Citing the Federal Circuit's MIT v. Abacus Software, 462 F.3d 1344 (Fed. Cir. 2006) decision, the Court concluded that "article feeder," like "circuitry" in the MIT case, described a known structure in the industry.  Additionally, the patent's prosecution history showed that both the examiner and the patienter understood "article feeder" to refer to a specific structure.  And dictionaries definitions of "feeder" were consistent with its use in the patent-at-issue.  Furthermore, the claims that included the term described the location of the article feeder and certain of its components, giving it structural definition.  Finally, defendant's means plus function definition failed because it sought to import structures that were not necessary to the "article feeder's" function and because certain of the structures were recited in independent claims, violating the doctrine of claim differentiation.

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Black & Decker Inc. v. Robert Bosch Tool Corp., No. 04 C 7955, 2006 WL 3783006 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 22, 2006) (St. Eve, J.).

Having already denied plaintiff summary judgment on defendant's inequitable conduct defense (here) and increased damages 50% and awarded prejudgment interest compounded monthly (here), the Court denied defendant's motions for judgment as a matter of law, to alter the willfulness judgment and for a new trial.  The Court's denial of these sort of post-trial motions is far from surprising, in light of the substantial burdens that must be overcome to win them.  Of special note, defendant argued that the jury's willfulness determination was not valid because the evidence relied upon was defendant's knowledge of a competing product that it believed to constitute patented technology, not defendant's knowledge of the specific patents that were infringed.  The Court held that the relevant inquiry is the infringer's knowledge of the existence of patent rights, not specific patents.

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As promised in my prior post about Bill Patry's Patry on Copyrights, below is the Blog's first e-interview.*  I emailed Patry questions about himself and his treatise and I print his responses (in italics) below.

What drove you to write a copyright treatise?

Probably a mild form of insanity. I have written other treatises, including a multivolume one of 1995, but I wanted to really go crazy, and did.

How did you go about writing the treatise and how large was the staff that helped you draft it?

It took me 7 years and when you include material I incorporated and revised from earlier works, it is 14 years total. I have never used assistants of any kind, so I researched and wrote 100% of it myself. The book evolved a lot over time, and I probably rewrote it substantially at least three times. I had a fair idea of the structure so the hard part was figuring out what kind of treatise I wanted it to be. A straight treatise along the lines of a recap of the statute and major case law is not so helpful or interesting. I wanted this to be exhaustive, meaning I tried to think of every issue I could, provide all cases I could, all legislative history, major commentary and insights from general law or even other disciplines outside of law. I tried to leave no stone unturned.

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Bill Patry has just published Patry on Copyright -- a seven volume treatise on copyright law and the first new copyright treatise in seventeen years according to Patry.  Patry spent seven years working on his nearly 6,000 page treatise and brings a distinguished background to the subject.  He is currently Google, Inc.'s Senior Copyright Counsel, he was a professor of copyright law at Cardozo (and an adjunct professor at my alma matter, the Georgetown University Law Center), copyright counsel to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee and Policy Planning Advisor to the Register of Copyrights.  You can see the table of contents here and you can buy Patry on Copyrights here.  You can also read Patry's own thoughts about his treatise on his Patry Copyright Blog or give him feedback on the treatise at his Patry Treatise Blog, both hosted by Google's Blogger, of course.

This appears to be an excellent, exhaustive resource for copyright practitioners and academics.  Stay tuned for more from Patry himself on his treatise.  Later today or tomorrow I will be posting the Blog's first e-interview (of Patry), which I plan to make a quasi-regular Blog feature. 

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Bergt v. McDougal Littell, No. 06 C 4645, 2006 WL 3782919 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 21, 2006) (Lefkow, J.).

Judge Lefkow denied defendants' motion to dismiss plaintiff's copyright and fraud case which alleged that defendants' use of plaintiff's copyrighted painting "Primavera" in textbooks exceeded the number of copies allowed by the parties' license agreement.  Defendants sent plaintiff, via his agent ("Agent"), a request to use copies of his painting in a run of no more than 40,000 textbooks.  Agent responded shortly thereafter with a document labeled "Invoice" which granted defendants the right to use Primavera in textbooks without specifying any limitations, for example limiting use to the run of 40,000 textbooks as per defendants' initial request.  Defendants argued that Agent's letter was a counteroffer which changed the terms of the parties' license.  But the Court held that defendants' initial letter, specifying the price and the limited run, was an offer and that Agent's letter was the acceptance.  The Court reasoned that Agent's letter did not require a response, suggesting it was an acceptance, and that defendants could not have reasonably believed that Agent was modifying the offer to allow unlimited use of Primavera, instead of a limit of 40,000 copies, without increasing the $200 license fee.

There is also what appears to be a similar case, although brought by a different plaintiff, addressed in this post.

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Ortho-Tain, Inc. v. Rocky Mountain Orthodontics, Inc., No. 05 C 6656, 2006 WL 3782916 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 20, 2006) (Leinenweber, J.).

Judge Leinenweber dismissed defendant's, Rocky Mountain Orthodontics ("RMO"), patent-related declaratory judgment counterclaims for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.  Plaintiff, Ortho-Tain ("OT"), sued RMO alleging that RMO breached the distributorship agreement between the parties pursuant to which OT manufactured dental appliances (allegedly covered by OT's patents) and RMO sold those appliances in France.  RMO counterclaimed for, among other things, declaratory judgment of noninfringement and unenforceability of OT's relevant United States patents.  RMO argued that OT's breach of contract and tortious interference suit combined with OT's warnings to RMO's customers that RMO was no longer authorized to sell OT products created the requisite reasonable apprehension of suit.  The Court, however, held that there was no reasonable apprehension.  OT's suit had been pending for over a year and OT had not added patent claims.  OT had also repeatedly stated that the suit was only a contract and tortious interference action.  While OT's statements stopped short of an affirmative disavowal of suit, they were sufficient to prevent a reasonable apprehension of suit.

Additionally, there was no present activity by RMO which constituted infringement.  RMO's counterclaims identified only United States patents, but RMO's sales activities were all in France.  Because there was no evidence submitted of infringing activity in the United States, there was no subject matter jurisdiction for a declaratory judgment action.

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McKillup Indus., Inc. v. Integrated Label Corp., No. 06 C 3279, 2006 WL 3775954 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 19, 2006) (Bucklo, J.).

Judge Bucklo denied summary judgment that defendant's "integrated labels," "integrated cards" and "integrated forms" marks were generic.  Plaintiff argued that the marks were generic based upon the separate dictionary definitions of "integrated" and "labels/cards/forms" (although there was no dictionary definition of either of the three whole marks) and evidence that competitors use the term, including a Google search of each of the marks.

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Abbott Labs. v. Sandoz, Inc., No. 05 C 5373, 2006 WL 3718025 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 15, 2006) (Coar, J.).

Judge Coar denied plaintiff's, Abbott Laboratories ("Abbott"), motion for a temporary restraining order ("TRO") to prevent defendant, Sandoz, Inc. ("Sandoz"), from selling a generic version of Abbott's patented extended release antibiotic (clarithromycin, an erythromycin derivative which Abbott markets as Biaxin XL).  The Court had entered a TRO and, ultimately, a preliminary injunction preventing another party, Teva Pharmaceuticals ("Teva"), from selling a generic version of plaintiff's patented extended release antibiotic, but the Federal Circuit vacated the preliminary injunction.  The Federal Circuit held that Teva raised a substantial question as to the validity of the claims at issue, sufficient to call Abbott's likelihood of success on the merits into question. 

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The Intellectual Property Law Association of Chicago ("IPLAC") is hosting a lunch seminar on January 24, 2007 at DePaul's Law School.  The speaker, Professor Katherine Strandburg, will give an overview of data privacy identifying the hot issues in the field, as well as discussing the relevant statutes and legislation.  A copy of the brochure for the seminar is here.  The brochure has registration details, but make sure to register by IPLAC's deadline -- next Friday, January 19. 

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Baldwin Graphic Sys., Inc. v. Siebert, Inc., No. 03 C 7713, 2006 WL 3718074 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 14, 2006) (Moran, J.).

Judge Moran's opinion addressed several motions in limine in preparation for a February 5 trial (good luck to both sides).  Of special note, the Court delayed ruling upon plaintiff's motion to exclude deposition testimony of two witnesses regarding prior use as hearsay .  Defendant argued, not surprisingly, that the testimony it intended to introduce was not hearsay.  The Court, however, could not rule on the motion because neither party provided the Court with copies of the relevant deposition testimony.  Practice tip:  always provide the Court with the evidence underlying your motions and arguments.  It is hard for a court to rule without seeing the evidence it is ruling upon.

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In my previous post about Google's introduction of its new Google Patents search interface, I did not yet appreciate the full range of the tool or its potential benefits.  The Ironic Sans blog has shown some of the site's power here, posting a list of celebrity patents identified using Google Patents.  Who knew Eddie Van Halen was an inventor. 

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AutoZone, Inc. v. Strick, __ F. Supp.2d __, 2006 WL 3626770 (N.D. Ill.  Dec. 7, 2006) (Hart, J.).

Judge Hart granted summary judgment for defendants and dismissed all of plaintiffs' claims in this trademark case.  First, the Court did a detailed analysis of each of the seven likelihood of confusion factors and determined that a reasonable jury could not find a likelihood of confusion between plaintiffs' AutoZone mark and defendants' Oil Zone and Wash Zone marks.  The Court found that plaintiffs' mark was strong, but held that there was not great similarity between the marks, that plaintiffs' and defendants' services were not similar, and that there was no evidence of actual confusion or intentional infringement.  As a result, the Court dismissed plaintiffs' trademark infringement and unfair competition claims.

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Matthew Buchanan and the rest of the folks at the Rethink(ip) blog have launched FedCirc.us.  Fed Circus claims it will provide summaries and analysis of all Federal Circuit case as they come down with lots of bells and whistles.  It sounds a lot like what this Blog does for the Northern District, but for the Federal Circuit (just like Patently-O).  It looks like a great site, and I am curious to see how they will differentiate themselves from Patently-O, which already has a very strong and very loyal audience.

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Andrew Corp. v. Beverly Mfg. Co., No. 04 C 6214, 2006 WL 3486884 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 1, 2006) (Holderman, Chief J.).

In this claim construction opinion regarding several patents relating to cable hangers used for telecommunications towers, Judge Holderman refuses to limit several claim terms based upon the preferred embodiments described in the specifications.  The Court explained that "district courts should not generally rely on preferred embodiments in specifications to confine claims unless the embodiment defines the outer limit of the claim." 

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On December 29th, the Blog was Inter Alia's Blawg* of the Day.  Thanks Inter Alia.

* For any that do not know "blawg" is blogger short hand for law blogs.

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Martin Eng. Co. v. CVP Group, Inc., No. 06 C 4687, 2006 WL 3541777 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 7, 2006) (Cole, J.).

Judge Cole granted defendant's motion for a 21 day extension to respond to written discovery requests.  Plaintiff refused to agree to the extension (for discovery due eight months prior to the close of fact discovery) and filed a written objection to defendant's motion citing a "pattern of dilatory conduct."  As examples of the pattern, plaintiff identified two items.  First, that it took defendant two weeks to respond to plaintiff's settlement offer, and only then after repeated calls from plaintiff.  And second, that defendant's Rule 26 disclosures were served nearly two weeks late.  The Court made clear that it did not condone a party ignoring the Court's deadlines or delay more generally, but noted that "not all delays are the same."

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Last Tuesday the Chicago Tribune published an article titled Human Resources Garnering Respect at Large Law Firms which discussed a growing trend among large law firms:  hiring HR professionals from outside of the legal profession and placing greater importance on HR.  The article suggests that  placing a greater emphasis on HR is one way in which the firms are combating increased attrition and associate dissatisfaction.

The Wired GC also noticed the article and wrote a thoughtful post about it here.

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The Chicago Tribune ran a story Sunday -- Lawyer Bills Get Closer Scrutiny -- about outside counsel billing and the potential for bill padding and other abuses.  The story quoted a few experts and briefly outlined the billing pressures faced by medium and large law firms, although it would probably be fair to say that firms of all size face pressures to bill.  The article highlighted a recent dispute between partners at a Wisconsin firm over billing practices in a copyright case, recent federal bankruptcy court fee applications, and a Cook County judge who halved plaintiffs' attorneys fees in a class action against Boeing. 

Not the best press for the profession, but I must say that my experience (as both inside and outside counsel) has been that attorneys generally strive to bill honestly, fairly and conservatively, to avoid questions like those raised in this article and the cases it cites.

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This is the first page of U.S. Patent No. 5,582,532 which covers a New Year's Eve party-type toy which emits "reflective particles."  Enjoy the day and the bowl games.  Go Blue!

More importantly though, I wish each of you a happy, healthy and prosperous 2007.  And thank you for helping launch the Chicago IP Litigation Blog in 2006.  I really enjoy writing it and I am very appreciative that each of you read it.  As always, your thoughts on the Blog and anything you would like to see on it are always welcome.

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