Next week, May 1, John Marshall is hosting a Law Day IP legal ethics program: Ethics in the Practice of Intellectual Property Law. The program offers four hours of ethics credits (the same amount of ethics credits required by Illinois in every two year reporting period). The program looks excellent and appears to be free. Click here for more information.
On Monday, April 20, John Marshall is offering a free CLE presentation (click here to register) by Columbia Professor Clarisa Long. The presentation is titled, The Political Economy of Intellectual Property Law. I do not have more information than the title, but it appears to be a timely topic as the Patent Reform Acts works its way through Congress.
Next Wednesday, April 8, John Marshall is offering a free (click here to register) CLE lecture by George Washington Professor John Duffy discussing how the state of federal laws may cause financial firms to shift from secret innovations to using patents and other legal mechanisms that foster innovation and transparency.
Here are some IP stories with a broad focused from Chicago-based institutions:
Here are several Chicago-area intellectual property CLEs that look like worthwhile programs:
I published an article in the most recent edition of the John Marshall Review of Intellectual Property Law surveying the application of the Twombly "plausibility" pleading standard, in place of the former any set of facts regime, to patent cases -- The Uneven Application of Twombly in Patent Cases: An Argument for Leveling the Playing Field (click here to read it). I found that district courts have largely followed the Federal Circuit's one case addressing Twombly, which unfortunately involved a pro se plaintiff, and held that Twombly did not change the pleading standards for patent plaintiffs. But despite that ruling, many district courts are requiring that patent defendants plead affirmative defenses and, in some cases, counterclaims to the higher plausibility standard. This creates a harmful dichotomy which can be remedied in two ways: 1) as some courts already do, use strict Local Patent Rules to require early disclosures of plaintiff's claims followed in short order by defendant's defenses; or 2) as at least the Western District of Wisconsin already does, require patent plaintiffs to identify the asserted claims and the accused products. Either or both level the playing field for the parties and come at little cost to plaintiffs who already have a Fed. R. Civ. P. 11 pre-suit investigation requirement.
In addition to my article, there are several excellent pieces in Volume 8, Issue 1 of Review of Intellectual Property Law, including:
John Marshall's Summer 2008 edition of its Review of Intellectual Property Law is on bookshelves everywhere, plus it is online (click here for the table of contents of the current edition with links to pdfs of each article). Some of the highlights in:
Whether you agree or disagree with the authors, this edition has some provocative arguments.
On Tuesday, September 16 the John Marshall Law School is putting on an impressive conference looking at the legacy of the Federal Circuit's Chief Judge Markey. For those that never had the opportunity to know or experience Judge Markey, here is part of Judge Michel's tribute to Judge Markey in the Legal Times after he passed in 2006:
Leadership for Howard Markey began with setting a vigorous example. He simply heard more appeals, wrote more opinions, gave more speeches, drafted more articles, taught more law school classes, and judged more moot courts than any other member of the court. And he did so despite all his administrative duties. Meanwhile, he chaired both the board of directors of the American Inns of Court and the Committee on Codes of Conduct of the Judicial Conference of the United States. He traveled constantly and sat with every regional circuit court, the first and only judge to do so.
Despite a life in overdrive, he was the happiest and funniest man I ever met, routinely reeling off five or six successive jokes without pausing to recollect, or even to breathe. Family members report that he had a perfect memory, an asset especially helpful to a tireless storyteller, which he was.
(Click here for a link to the article and more on Judge Markey). If Judge Michel's description of Markey is not enough to get you to the event, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia will be giving the keynote address. I have had the privilege of hearing Justice Scalia speak a couple of times. He is an excellent speaker and should not be missed.
Click here for John Marshall's conference brochure and here for Patent Docs' description of the event, they are a seminar sponsor. The registration deadline is this Friday, September 12. I hope to see you there.
James Sweeney, a prominent member of Chicago's IP bar, passed away last week -- click here for the Sun Time's obituary. Sweeney graduated from Northwestern Law in 1956, after serving in the U.S. Navy aboard a submarine from 1950-1953. He practiced law most recently with Barnes & Thornburg. In 2000, at the request of the State Department, he traveled through Malaysia with his wife speaking about IP counterfeiting and piracy. Sweeney also organized and directed John Marshall's Center for Intellectual Property Law:
The John Marshall Law School hired Mr. Sweeney in 1998 to run its Center for Intellectual Property Law because of his extensive background and his many contacts, said John E. Corkery, dean of the school. Mr. Sweeney retired in 2003.
"Jim was a big, gregarious fellow and he knew many, many people in the legal profession and particularly in intellectual property," Corkery said. "It was hard to walk down the street with Jim Sweeney and not have him say hello to someone he knew.
* * *
"He organized and directed the program and hired the practicing lawyers who would come to the law school and teach for us."
I am sad to report that Mark Banner of Banner & Witcoff passed away over the weekend. Mark was an important member of Chicago's IP bar and an active participant in educating numerous lawyers as an adjunct professor at both John Marshall in Chicago and my alma mater the Georgetown University Law Center. My condolences go out to Mark's family and the Banner & Witcoff firm.
Here is some more information on Mark's legacy from Banner & Witcoff:
Mark was the lead trial counsel in many successful intellectual property trials from both the plaintiff's and the defendant's perspectives. He had a particular passion for jury trials of patent cases and computer-related technologies. Despite battling cancer for the last five years, Mark continued his involvement in litigation and counseling work. “Mark made significant contributions to the field of intellectual property law. He was an extremely gifted attorney, a loyal partner, and a devoted friend. Mark was an integral part of the firm and will be greatly missed,” said Thomas K. Pratt, President of Banner & Witcoff.
Mark was a Past-Chair of the American Bar Association (ABA) Section of Intellectual Property Law. He served as a member of the 16-lawyer Council of the ABA Section of Intellectual Property Law for many years. He was the past Editor of the ABA Section of Patent, Trademark and Copyright Law, and a past Contributing Editor of the Quarterly Journal of the American Intellectual Property Law Association. He was a past chairman of the Illinois State Bar Association Section of Intellectual Property Law. He was named one of the top 10 lawyers in the state of Illinois as chosen through a peer balloting process involving 47,000 Illinois lawyers and through a research and review panel
organized by Law & Politics magazine.
Mark frequently lectured on patent law, patent trials, trade secrets, and other intellectual property matters. He served as a faculty member of the first National Institute of Trial Advocacy program specially designed to develop patent litigation trial skills. He was also an adjunct professor at the John Marshall Law School and the Georgetown Law Center, teaching courses on patent trial advocacy and enhanced use of technology in the trial of complex cases. He was also a bar course administrator for the Master Class on Appellate Advocacy, taught by the Hon. Paul R. Michel, Chief Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, at the Center for Intellectual Property Law at the John Marshall Law School.
A graduate of Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, and the John Marshall Law School in Chicago, Illinois, Mark was a member of the Law Review and graduated with high honors. Mark was born in Pontiac, Michigan, January 21, 1950.
He was preceded in death by his mother, Ruth, who died in 1985 and his father, Donald W. Banner, who died in 2006. He is survived by his wife Kathie German. He is also survived by his sisters Peggy (Mrs. James) Dau of Bartlesville, OK, and Pamela (Mrs. Robert) Banner Krupka of Los Angeles, CA, and brothers Donald J. (Helen) of Pueblo, CO, and Brian E. (Cathleen) of Washington, DC. Mark is also survived by his stepmother Jean Banner of Tucson, Arizona and his step sisters Nancy (Mrs. Robert) Phipps of Nashville, TN, Helen (Mrs. George) Smith of Atlanta, GA and Louise (Mrs. Robert) Whitaker of Franklin, TN.
The family is planning a memorial service for Mark in January 2008 in Chicago, Illinois.
The family requests that memorials be made to the Donald W. Banner and Mark T. Banner Scholarship Fund at the John Marshall Law School (315 South Plymouth Court, Chicago IL 60604).
Thanks to Dennis Crouch at Patently-O for bringing this sad news to my attention.
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