I am proud to announce that the Chicago Bar Association has honored me, and the Blog, with the 2010 Herman Kogan Media Award. I usually do not post about personal awards, but I am making an exception because this one stems from my work on the Blog. I was the first winner of the Kogan Award’s new online category. The print and broadcast category recipients of the 2010 Kogan Awards were, respectively, The Chicago Reporter and Chicago’s ABC 7 News. I received the award for my series of posts on the Local Patent Rules at the end of 2009 — click here to read the posts. The award comes with a $1,000 journalism scholarship, which I have given to Loyola University Chicago’s journalism school.
Here is a little bit more about the Herman Kogan Media Awards:
Established in 1989, CBA’s Herman Kogan Media Awards competition honors local journalists and legal affairs reporting. Qualified candidates in the Chicago metropolitan area submitted entries in one of three entries: Print, Broadcast or Online. The competition celebrates the life of Herman Kogan, whose career spanned more than 50 years and included positions as an editor, reporter, feature and editorial writer, historian, literary critic and radio host.
Thank you to the Chicago Bar Association and the Herman Kogan Media Award committee for this honor. And if you are interested in hearing more about the award and how I blog, click here for an interview LexBlog did with me after the award.

Continue Reading R. David Donoghue Honored With the Chicago Bar Association’s Herman Kogan Media Award

Seattle Trademark Lawyer Michael Atkins did a superb job hosting this week’s Blawg Review — click here to read it. Atkins takes a stroll through Seattle’s famous Pike’s Place Market looking at Seattle-based blogs — Washington State Patent Law Blog, LexBlog and the China Law Blog, among others — as well as a number of trademark blogs. I was fortunate to be featured on Atkins’s tour with last week’s post about the Lettuce trademark dispute — click here to read my post. Thanks Mike, for a great Blawg Review and for including the Blog.

Continue Reading Blawg Review #225: A Trademark Focus from Pike Place Market

A new blog and several stories I have been meaning to get to, but have not had enough time:
* Tom Patterson, from Chicago, has joined the blogosphere with the Emergency Business Litigation blog, another blog by Lexblog. It does not have an IP focus, but some of Patterson’s first post deal with Federal Circuit decisions regarding injunctions in patent cases — click here and here to read them. Welcome to the blogging conversation Tom.
* The IP ADR Blog has an interesting guest post from Robert Rose discussing patent arbitration rules — click here to read the post. Of particular interest, Rose points out the oft forgotten statutory obligation to notify the PTO of any arbitration award, which is made part of the file history.
* Also from the IP ADR Blog, Victoria Pynchon has posted the slides that were the basis of a February 2009 CLE presentation we did about alternative dispute resolution in patent disputes, a valuable tool particularly in difficult economic times. Click here for Pynchon’s post with the slides.

Continue Reading New Blogs & IP ADR News

Here are a few stories that do not warrant a full post:
* The mainstream media and the blogosphere are buzzing with predictions of who is on President Obama’s shortlist for replacing Justice Souter The Northern District’s Judge Castillo and the Seventh Circuit’s Judge Wood are both making many of the lists — check out one list at the Daily Writ. Both excellent choices. Over the weekend, the Chicago Tribune ran a story about a local expectation that someone connected to the University of Chicago would be appointed to the Supreme Court during the Obama presidency. I also wonder if the Northern District’s Judge St. Eve is or should be on some shortlists.
* Ronald Slusky is bringing his two-day patent claim drafting seminar to Chicago May 19-20. Slusky promises to teach “a comprehensive approach to analyzing inventions and capturing them in a sophisticated set of patent claims. Through this interactive seminar, participants will enhance their skills in a classroom setting.” I have not attended Slusky’s seminar myself, so I cannot speak to its value, but it definitely looks interesting.
* Last week the House held hearings about the Patent Reform Act. Check out some commentary on the hearings at Patently-O.
* I got out of the habit of posting each week’s Blawg Review, but last week’s was both too good and too unique to pass up. Blawg Review #209 is up at John Hochfelder’s New York Injury Cases Blog (another LexBlog site) — read it here. Hochfelder tells the moving story of his father’s life, the life of an American hero. Blawg Review #210 is also available at the China Law Blog — click here to read it. It is also an excellent Review based loosely on the 90th anniversary of China’s May 4th Movement.

Continue Reading Patent News: Patent Reform & Supreme Court Shortlist

I am a little late to this story, but before Thanksgiving the new e-Justice Blog published a list of the top 50 internet and digital law blogs — click here for the list. I am honored that this blog made the e-Justice list, especially when you look at the other blogs on the list. Here are some of the blogs, listed by e-Justice’s categories:
Academic Blogs
Berkman Center for Internet and Society
Stanford Center for Internet and Society
Law Blog (John Marshall’s own Prof. Sorkin)
Lessig
Eric Goldman’s Technology & Marketing Law Blog
Copyright, Intellectual Property and Defamation
The Trademark Blog
Internet Law – Copyright Law
New Media and Digital Law
New Media and Technology Law Blog (another LexBlog creation)
Silicon Valley Media Law Blog
Firms & Lawyers
Technology, eBusiness and Digital Media Law Blog (another LexBlog creation)
Internet Law Attorney Blog
Ernie the Attorney
Internet Cases
News and Business
Gahtan’s Technology and Internet Law Blog
Technology and Marketing Law Blog
DennisKennedy

Continue Reading Top 50 Internet & Digital Law Blogs

Blawg Review #186 is up at Res Ipsa — click here to read it. Befitting a blog that focuses on the use of technology in the law, there is plenty of IP content:
* Traverse Legal has a great post, including a podcast, (click here to read/listen to it) explaining that while it is possible to register your marks without a lawyer, the smart decision is to use a lawyer that is an expert in the field.
* IP’s What’s Up makes the argument that open source licenses are a powerful use of a copyright — click here to read it.
* The mighty IPKat looks at the best IP advice provided by its readers in response to a recent contest — click here to read the advice and IP Kat’s thoughts.
Finally, it is not directly IP-related, but the Review also looks at an interesting technology debate that is occupying the legal blogosphere — the value of Twitter as a legal marketing tool. Calling himself a curmudgeon, David Giacalone at f/k/a argues against Twitter, or at least questions its business development value — click here to read the post, which has generated significant discussion and response. LexBlog’s Kevin O’Keefe responded strongly arguing Twitter’s value — click here to read it. O’Keefe’s arguments for Twitter boil down to the fact that Twitter is a powerful networking tool. It allows colleagues around the country and world with common backgrounds and issues to find each other and engage in far-reaching conversations. And building networks builds both professional satisfaction and business. I agree with O’Keefe whole-heartedly. But I also understand Giacalone’s uncertainty and lack of comfort with Twitter It takes most lawyers multiple tries to get Twitter and more than that to get comfortable using it. Hopefully, Giacalone will keep trying and figure it out eventually.

Continue Reading Blawg Review #186

Jones Day v. BlockShopper.com, No. 08 C 4572 (N.D. Ill.) (Darrah, J.).
As I have described in earlier posts (click here, here and here) plaintiff Jones Day sued defendants, BlockShopper LLC and two individuals associated with the website (collectively “Blockshopper”), for allegedly using Jones Day’s service marks and linking to its website in at least two articles discussing Chicago real estate transactions of Jones Day associates. Jones Day claims service mark infringement, Lanham Act false designation of origin, Lanham Act dilution, and state law deceptive trade practices and unfair competition. Plaintiff also moved for a temporary restraining order (“TRO”). The parties stipulated to a TRO which the Court entered ordering defendants not to: 1) use Jones Day’s service mark; 2) use any content from or link to Jones Day’s website; or reference Jones Day in Blockshopper headlines.
Last Friday, Blockshopper filed a motion to dismiss. And several public interest groups — the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Knowledge and the Citizen Media Law Project — has sought leave to file this amicus brief supporting Blockshopper’s motion to dismiss. Jones Day opposed the motion, arguing that the three groups and their arguments do not meet any of the Seventh Circuit’s standards for amicus filings. I will keep you posted about the case generally and as to whether the Court enters the amicus brief.
And the case continues to draw fairly strong legal blog interest:
The Prior Art
Real Lawyers Have Blogs (LexBlog’s Kevin O’Keefe)
Public Citizen at its Consumer Law & Policy blog (acknowledging that he was incorrect as to the timing of an alleged quote from Judge Darrah, which he also did in a comment to my post discussing the alleged quote)
Las Vegas Trademark Attorney
Citizen Vox
Ars Technica (and here, discussing the amicus brief)
The legal blog commentary continues to run heavily against Jones Day and in favor of Blockshopper.

Continue Reading Jones Day v. Blockshopper: Amicus Filing

Yesterday, LexMonitor featured me as its blogger of the day — click here for LexMonitor’s page on the Blog and me. That leads to a thank you, an apology and some disclosure. Thanks to LexMonitor for highlighting the Blog and for all of the work the LexMonitor team does aggregating legal blog content in one place. Next, I apologize for not posting specifically about LexMonitor when it debuted earlier this year. In my defense, I did immediately add them to my blog roll. LexMonitor is a great resource for identifying new legal content to follow. They take a process that, on your own, is like drinking from a fire hose and make it manageable to find the legal blogs in your areas of interest. Finally, full disclosure: LexMonitor was created and is run by the great people at LexBlog who run this site for me and who I routinely credit for the great job they do on this blog and so many others.

Continue Reading Welcome LexMonitor Readers