JD Journal » IP law

Morning Roundup

joshua — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 17:30:26 +0000

Good morning! Today is Wednesday, February 23, and here’s a quick look back at yesterday’s news…

Zuckerman Spaeder absorbed a Baltimore boutique…

Dickstein Shapiro expanded its IP practice in Southern California…

And Congress is considering suspending the Equal Access to Justice program…

Dickstein Shapiro Adds Four in LA

joshua — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 19:46:48 +0000

Dickstein Shapiro continues to expand its IP practice on the west coast. Following the opening of an office in Irvine last year with the addition of IP partner Kimberly Nobles, the firm added three more IP partners and one senior counsel last week.

Robert Dickerson, formely the head of Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe’s Los Angeles IP practice is moving to Dickstein Shapiro along with partners Yasser El-Gamal and Allan Jansen and senior counsel James Geriak. Dickerson will join the Los Angeles office and the other three will work out of the Irvine office.

The firm plans to have 20 IP lawyers in California soon and as many as 30 by the end of the year.

Dickstein Shapiro LLP, founded in 1953, has offices in Washington, DC, New York, Los Angeles, Stamford, and Orange County.

IP Today Ranks Schwegman, Lundberg & Woessner as Second Leading Intellectual Property Law Firm

joshua — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 16:55:28 +0000

In the April 2010 issue of IP Today, Schwegman, Lundberg & Woessner, P.A., was recognized as the second leading intellectual property law firm.

The firm was also recognized as a top quality patent prosecution firm in March by Intellectual Asset Management magazine, and by IP Law & Business magazine in January.

The Law Firm Patent Scorecard™ evaluates patent innovation, as determined by patent representation. The ranking focuses on assessing the quality of the patents intellectual property firms prosecute over the course of the year.

Schwegman ranked number two overall, and number two in the Technology Strength™ category, which measures the quality, quantity, and overall strength of a firm’s patent portfolio assets.

Schwegman, Lundberg & Woessner is a boutique law firm dedicated to the practice of intellectual property law. The firm serves an international roster of clients that includes multinational corporations, middle-market businesses, startups, universities, and individuals. SLW has offices in Minneapolis, Silicon Valley, and Austin.

Kaye Scholer Opens in Silicon Valley

joshua — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 20:35:17 +0000

Kaye Scholer is opening a new office in Silicon Valley, with the help of a veteran patent litigator from White & Case. William Coats was the manager of White & Case’s Palo Alto office prior to last year and brings some heavy clients with him to Kaye Scholer. Among his book of business, estimated at being worth between $4 million and $5 million, are LucasFilm and Pioneer Electronics.

The firm has not yet found a location for the new office, its second in California.

Founded in 1917 in New York City, Kaye Scholer is a global law firm with 450 attorneys in offices in Chicago, Frankfurt, London, Los Angeles, New York, Shanghai, Washington, D.C., West Palm Beach and now Silicon Valley.

Revenue Declines Slightly at Arent Fox

joshua — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 19:46:14 +0000

2009 looks a lot like 2008 at Arent Fox where revenue fell slightly to $216.5 million from the previous year’s $222.5 million. Profits per partner came in at $800,000, the same as in 2008, and revenue per lawyer was $690,000, a slight drop from 2008. The firm finished the year with the same number of partners as it had in 2008, but kept per partner profits flat despite a slight dip in revenue by cutting 5% from its expense budget and prepaying some 2009 expenses in 2008.

The real estate practice took a hit in 2009 but the decline in real estate law was balanced out by a strong showing in litigation, particularly within the IP practice group.

Arent Fox has nearly 350 attorneys with offices in Los Angeles, Washington D.C. and New York.

Woodcock Washburn Names New Litigation Chair

joshua — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 22:09:50 +0000

Woodcock Washburn has named David J. Wolfsohn chairman of the firm’s litigation group. He replaces Dianne Elderkin, who left this week with three other partners to join Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld’s.

Wolfson has been with Woodcock Washburn since 2005. Among his more notable achievements at the firm was a $19-million jury verdict in a copyright case awarded in June 2006 and a $5.8 million settlement of a trade secret case.

Woodcock Washburn specializes in IP law and has offices in Atlanta, Philadelphia and Seattle.

NBC’s Triumph

joshua — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 18:21:06 +0000

On Thursday we talked about the legal muscle involved with the Conan O’Brien dustup at NBC, and speculated that Conan might be able to take Triumph the Insult Comic Dog with him wherever he goes. According to the terms of the agreement reached between Conan and NBC, it looks like Triumph will have to stay with NBC along with other characters and sketches created by Conan and his team. It’s unlikely that NBC will be able to use any of the characters since they are so strongly identified with Conan, but by holding on to the rights they force O’Brien to start from scratch, sort of, when he hosts a show on a rival station. We say sort of, because Conan will have fairly wide latitude to create new characters that are essentially the same with a different name.

Brinks Hofer Opens DC Office

joshua — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 18:03:53 +0000

Brinks Hofer has closed it’s office in Arlington, Va, which was staffed by three paralegals and no lawyers, and opened its doors in Washington DC. The new office will be led by Thomas Holt, an IP lawyer from Brinks Hofer’s Chicago office. Holt will be joined in Washington by associates Scott Brim and Michelle Miller, both of whom are also making the move from the Chicago office. According to Holt, Brinks Hofer has been looking for an opportunity to expand its IP practice to the Washington area for some time, and “the pieces didn’t fall into place until now”.

Brinks Hofer Gilson & Lione was founded in 1917 as the two-man patent law firm of Wilkinson & Huxley. Today Brinks has approximately 180 attorneys in six US offices.

Blank Rome Loses Four to Sterne Kessler Goldstein & Fox

joshua — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 22:53:39 +0000

Sterne Kessler picked up four IP lawyers from Blank Rome, including H. Keeto Sabharwal who had been Blank Rome’s IP litigation practice group leader. Sabharwal brought Daniel Yonan, who joins as of counsel, and associates Nirav Desai and Dennies Varughese along with him. The four will work out of the Washington DC office.

Sterne Kessler Goldstein & Fox was founded in Washington DC in 1978 and has over 130 attorneys, specializing in IP and patent law.

Former Congressman Nethercutt Joins Spokane Firm

joshua — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 02:29:23 +0000

Former member of the House of Representatives George Nethercutt has signed on with Lee & Hayes in Spokane, Washington. Nethercutt, a Republican, represented his district in eastern Washington for a decade. Lee & Hayes, a Washington firm with offices in Spokane, Seattle and Austin, Texas, specializes in IP law. Nethercutt’s practice will focus on energy and life sciences.

Foley & Lardner Snag IP Co-Chair from Sheppard Mullin

joshua — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 21:22:00 +0000

Amar Thakur, who was the co-chair of Sheppard Mullin‘s IP practice group, has jumped to Foley & Lardner, bringing one other attorney with him. Thakur said that Foley’s larger IP practice and interest in his growing specialty of monetizing IP portfolios factored into the decision. Jeffrey Solomon also moved to Foley as special counsel.

Sheppar Mullin declined to comment on the move but noted that Daniel Yannuzzi has replaced Thakur as the co-chair of the IP practice group.

Foley & Lardner Score Big Contract with NIH

joshua — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 12:13:20 +0000

The National Institute of Health has awarded a ten year, $208 million contract to Milwaukee based Foley & Lardner. The contract calls for Foley & Lardner to provide intellectual property services in areas such as patents for biotechnology.

Foley & Lardner recently deferred for the second time its incoming IP associates, who will be starting next September. With the new influx of IP work from this contract, we can only hope the firm will reconsider that decision.

Foley & Lardner LLP is an international general practice law firm started in 1842 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It employs 1,000 attorneys and is the 24th largest firm in the United States.

Outside Counsel Spending Predicted to Decline

joshua — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 16:08:54 +0000

According to a new report from legal consultants BTI Consulting Group, spending on outside counsel will continue to drop next year. In 2008 spending on oustide counsel averaged out at $20.8 million. This year outside counsel spending average out to $18.5 million and next years average is predicted to by $17.7 million.

Corporate law, real estate law, IP law and tax law groups will be hit the hardest as companies strive to handle more of that in house and the economy remains soft. Regulatory law practice groups can expect to see an increase, however, as companies look for more cost efficient ways to comply with regulations.

Nine Fish & Richardson Lawyers Move to Bracewell & Giuliani

joshua — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 20:26:36 +0000

As we reported last month, Fish and Richardson is closing its office in Austin. Nine IP lawyers from that office have signed on with Bracewell & Giuliani, according to a press releasefrom Bracewell.

The IP group is headed by Alan Albright, who was managing principal of Fish & Richardson’s Austin office. Ed Cavazos, Barry Shelton, Andrew Gajkowski, Chris Johnson, Betty Chen, Michael Chibib and David Hoffman round out the group. Some of the nine have already made the move, and the rest will come over as they wrap up current projects.

Bracewell & Giuliani employs more than 400 lawyers at offices in Texas, New York, Washington DC, and Connecticut, as well as in Dubai, Kazakhstan, and London.

Fish and Richardon – Update

joshua — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 19:11:13 +0000

UPDATED

On Friday we reported that Fish & Richardson is closing up shop in Austin. In an update to this story, the firm has announced that they are discontinuing their corporate group as a seperate practice group, effective at the end of this year. The corporate group has 14 lawyers firm wide, some of which will remain with the firm in the northeast.

Fish & Richardson is a global IP and technology firm with 11 other offices world wide. Founded in the latter part of the 19th century, F&R handled many early patent matters including the telephone, the automobile and the radio. Some of their early clients included the Wright brothers and Alexander Graham Bell.