On July 9, 2025 from 2:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. CT, the Chicago Chapter of the Federal Bar Association and the 7th Circuit Bar Association Pro Bono Committee will host a free CLE event focusing on settlement advocacy techniques for pro se cases. Chief Judge Virginia M. Kendall of the U.S. District Court for the
CLE: Ethics in the Practice of IP Law
John Marshall is hosting its 11th annual Ethics in the Practice of Intellectual Property Law seminar on Friday, June 5, 2020, from noon – 3:45 pm CST. The seminar will be online and is offering 3.25 hours of professional responsibility credit, including 1 hour of mental health/substance abuse credit. Register here.
Topics include:
- Conflicts
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Seeking Questions for PTO Director Iancu
I am honored to announce that I will be interviewing U.S. Patent & Trademark Office Director Andrei Iancu at the kickoff session of this year’s Rocky Mountain IP Institute in Denver, Colorado. First, I invite you to join me – register here. I have attended and spoken at the Institute for years and firmly…
CLE: Northern District of Illinois Symposium on Women Lawyers in the Courtroom
The Northern District, along with the Chicago Bar Association and in conjunction with the Women’s Bar Association of Illinois and the Black Women Lawyers’ Association, are sponsoring a free program, “May it Please the Court:” Symposium on Women Lawyers in the Courtroom.
It is being held from 12:30-5:15pm CT on April 12, 2018, at the…
Northern District Offering Trial Bar Members Training Seminars re Prisoner Representations
The Northern District of Illinois has invited Northern District Trial Bar attorneys to a pair of CLE programs on Thursday, February 15, including;
- Anatomy of a Prisoner Civil Rights Case – 9:30 a.m. to 12:00 noon
- Medical Claims – 1:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.
The seminars are free, lunch will be provided and continuing legal…
CLE: Imagination, Invention and Patent Incentives
On February 2, 2018 at 4:00 pm the John Marshall Law School is offering what promises to be a very interesting CLE presentation by the former Director of its Center for Intellectual Property Law, Richard S. Gruner. Gruner is also former in-house counsel for IBM and the co-author of Transactional Intellectual Property: From Startups to…
The Power of PTAB: The New Authority in Patent Law
Chicago Kent’s The Power of PTAB: The New Authority in Patent Law is a Chicago-based conference hosted by Chicago Kent Law from 8:15am until 5:30pm CT on November 3, 2017. The conference will examine the rise of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), which is on pace in 2017 to set a record of…
CLE: Legal Challenges of an Evolving Internet
DePaul Law is hosting an impressive CLE program (11 hours of credit) this Thursday and Friday, October 15-16 at its downtown Chicago campus titled Cyberlaw 2.1: Legal Challenges of an Evolving Internet. The panels are largely academic and very impressive. Here is how DePaul describes the program:
[The conference] contemplates the changing role of the internet in society. These developments bring, as technological advances often do, both opportunities and risks. Correspondingly, cyberlaw doctrine now confronts challenges resulting from the increasing importance of social networking applications and cloud computing, the drive toward “personalization” of search, advertising, and other internet experiences, and, as life is lived more and more online, the related threats to private life caused by the potential to store more and more complete records of individuals’ experiences. Our speakers will explore the ways in which Web 2.0 and beyond affects a wide spectrum of legal issues, ranging from privacy and freedom of expression through intellectual property.
In connection with the program, DePaul is also hosting the 12th Annual Niro Distinguished Intellectual Property Lecture and Luncheon. The speaker will be Stanford’s Mark Lemley presenting his paper, “Irrelevant Confusion.” Click here to register and here for more information on either program.
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CLE: IP Ethics
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.
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Northwestern Journal of Technology & IP Symposium
Please join me this Friday, March 6 for the Northwestern Journal of Technology & Intellectual Property’s annual symposium. I will be moderating a debate over whether business methods should be patentable in light of the recent Bilski decision. McDonnell Boehnen’s Bob Irvine will argue for business methods and Knobbe Martens’ Lauren Katzenellenbogen will argue against. If that debate is not enough to get you to the Symposium, here is a sampling of the other excellent presentations:
The Northern District’s Chief Judge Holderman will give the not to be missed keynote presentation: “Ten Commandments for Conducting an Intellectual Property Jury Trial.”
Panel on Tafas v. Dudas, Patent Rules Changes, and Patent Reform – a panel discussion on the Tafas case and patent reform bills recently considered by Congress featuring Chris Singer of McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff, and Patent Docs author, will discuss the Tafas v. Dudas decision and the effects the proposed changes would have had on patent practice, and Prof. Sean Seymore of the Washington and Lee University School of Law, and Prof. Matthew Sag of DePaul University College of Law, who will add a viewpoint from outside the practicing legal community.
Discussion of Employer Invention Assignment Agreements after DDB Technologies L.L.C. v. MLB Advanced Media, L.P. – a panel discussion regarding the best ways for protecting a client’s interests (whether the individual or the company) in an invention assignment agreement following DDB Technologies, featuring Mike Baniak of McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff, and Todd Dawson, Vice President of Legal Affairs at Zimmer, Inc.
More information is available at the Symposium’s website. Registration is free, although CLE credit costs $50 per credit hour. To register contact the development editor, Michael Hammer, m-hammer2009@nlaw.northwestern.edu.
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