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.

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"He organized and directed the program and hired the practicing lawyers who would come to the law school and teach for us."