N.D. Illinois: 2009 Intellectual Property Filings

Posted on January 18, 2010 by R. David Donoghue

The Northern District of Illinois continued its historically busy intellectual property docket in 2009.  For the first time in several years, there was a slight decrease in patent case filings. Of course, that is not surprising in light of a difficult economy and patent filings being down across the country. And I suspect that the new Local Patent Rules* will result in an increase in patent litigation filings for 2010. Trademark cases bucked their downward trend over the last several years, and were up by about 10% over 2008. Finally, copyright cases continued a relatively steep decline.  But despite the decline, the Northern District maintains one of the most active copyright dockets in the country.  This chart shows the number of yearly patent, trademark and copyright cases filed in the Northern District during calendar years 2006 through 2009 (data gathered from the Stanford IP Clearinghouse and Pacer):
 

Northern District IP Case Filings

Case Type

2006

2007

2008

2009

Patent

126

141

151

137

Trademark

136

130

128

136

Copyright

194

123

81

41

*  Click here for much more on the Local Patent Rules in the Blog's archives.

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Northern District Pioneers Full Online Attorney Registration

Posted on April 16, 2009 by R. David Donoghue

Last week the Northern District of Illinois became the first federal court to allow complete online registration and payment for attorney admission -- click here to read the Clerk's press release.  You can now register for both the general and trial bars online and pay the registration fees by credit card.  This is another step toward getting the federal courts fully online, now if they could only end PACER access fees.

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Online Court Transcripts Come With New Rules

Posted on June 23, 2008 by R. David Donoghue
The Northern District started making copies of requested court transcripts (not depositions) available online via Pacer – click here for the Northern District's statement on its new transcript procedures. This is great news for Northern District litigators and litigants. It will be much easier to get information about ongoing cases and, in time, prior cases, information that used to require calls to court reporters or prior counsel.

But the online transcripts also create additional responsibilities.* Pursuant to recently added Fed. R. Civ. P. 5.2 (click here for the Blog's discussion for 5.2), certain personal information – social security numbers, identities of minors, and financial account numbers, for example, must be redacted from filed papers. Counsel for a party has twenty one days after a transcript is filed to e-file a Transcript Redaction Request that specifically identifies the information to be redacted and its exact location within the transcript. Also, the request cannot fully list the information to be removed, because that would require redaction of the Redaction Request.

If redaction of information beyond personal identifiers is desired, a separate motion to redact must be filed with the court. When a transcript is redacted, only the redacted version will be made publicly available.

A couple of other notes regarding availability and pricing:

  • Transcripts will be e-filed by the court reporter within three days of delivery to the party requesting the transcript.

  • For ninety days after filing, a transcript will be viewable only electronically and only at the Clerk's office. After ninety days, the transcript will be publicly available anywhere online.

  • Pacer's fees will not be capped at thirty pages for transcripts.

*  This may seem like excessive discussion of procedural minutia, but if you litigate or practice in the Northern District, or anywhere that puts transcripts on Pacer, I encourage you to read on. Online transcripts increase the risk of violating the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (see discussion regarding Fed. R. Civ. P. 5.2 below) and of accidental public disclosure of sensitive or confidential information regarding litigants or witnesses.

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Free Pacer Access Available in the Northern District

Posted on November 14, 2007 by R. David Donoghue

As part of a Federal Courts pilot project, free online Pacer* access and printing has been made available to the general public at sixteen libraries, including the Seventh Circuit's William J. Campbell Library on the 17th floor of the Dirksen Building.  So, you can avoid the $.08 per page charges online with a trip to the courthouse.

A hat tip to the WSJ Law Blog for alerting me to the free Pacer access.

*  Pacer provides access to the dockets from each case in the federal court system, including links to pdf versions of all publicly available documents.

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