JD Journal » patent law

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.

Congress Considers U.S. Patent Overhaul

joshua — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 18:29:03 +0000

A bipartisan group of U.S. Senators, led by Judiciary Committee Chair Patrick Leahy, is poised to agree on a compromise bill that would overhaul the U.S. patent system.

Details of the plan, which is opposed by inventors, have not been revealed publicly. However, Leahy told the Associated Press the plan “will benefit all corners of the patent community.

“We are close to a compromise that will address these issues. No one will think this a perfect bill, but we are close to a comprehensive patent reform bill that benefits all corners of the patent community.”

The Patent Reform Act made it out of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2009. It proposed various changes to patent law, including lowering the amount of damages patent owners can gain in patent infringement litigation.

Opponents of the bill have called the reform ‘misguided.’ A bipartisan group of lawmakers explained their dissent in a letter.

“The recession has illustrated the need for the U.S. to maintain a diverse economy and promote policies that encourage American companies to research, develop and manufacture products in the United States,” the letter said.

“Key to these pro-growth policies are strong patent protections that ensure the patent application process is efficient and fair for big and small companies alike,” it added.

Critics of the proposal also cite the changes of the method of calculating damages in a patent suit from common law methodology to a statutory methodology. Technology companies such as Microsoft and Google support the change, but critics include pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.

The U.S. patent system has not been overhauled since 1952.

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.

Federal Court Slams Microsoft, Bans Sale of Word

joshua — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 19:45:47 +0000

A Federal Circuit Court has upheld a $290 million patent infringement verdict against Microsoft and kept in place an injunction barring Microsoft from selling current versions of its massively popularWord as of January 11. Microsoft says that they will make necessary changes to the program before the deadline and that new versions will be available.

The suit stems from the way MS Word uses XML, which classifies documents for retrieval by computers. MS Word contains code patented by a small Toronto company named i4i Inc. i4i sued Microsoft in Texas and a jury returned a verdict in favor of the Canadian company. The judge issued the $290 million penalty along with a permanent ban on the sale of Word 2003 and Word 2007.

Users of the current versions of Word will not be affected by the decision. Microsoft can continue to support existing copies of the software. The biggest losers may well be software retailers who will be unable to sell their stock after January 11 and computer retailers who frequently bundle Office, including Word, with new computers.

Intel and AMD Reach $1.2 Billion Settlement

joshua — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 18:29:37 +0000

According to a press release from Intel this morning, the two companies have reached an agreement whereby AMD will drop all of its antitrust complaints, worldwide. Intel and AMD will gain joint patent rights from a new five year cross license agreement and both companies will give up any breach of contract claims from the previous contract. For this, Intel will pay AMD $1.25 billion.

AMD had antitrust complaints pending in Delaware and in Japan.

The agreement is between private companies and does not affect ongoing investigations by the FTC or the lawsuit filed by the state of New York. Intel is also on the hook still for a fine handed down by the European Union earlier this year, pending an appeal of that case.

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.

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.

Fish and Richardson closing Austin office

joshua — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 17:23:36 +0000

According to tipsters, Fish & Richardson will be closing shop in Austin at the end of this year. Firm president Peter Devlin made the announcement via voice mail and was in Austin to discuss the closure with staff and lawyers.

Fish & Richardson is a global firm with 12 offices around the world. Core practices including intellectual property, litigation and corporate law and it has a rich history of working with innovators and inventors including Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison and the Wright brothers. They remain one of the top firms for patent infringement cases in the country.

Virtual Law Partners Hires Four Attorneys

Erik Even — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 23:07:57 +0000

Virtual Law Partners, which hired five new partners four weeks ago, has this week brought on four new partners for its commercial lending and intellectual property practices.

David Lawson joins from Troutman Sanders, where he was a partner, to chair Virtual Law’s commercial lending practice. He earned his JD from the University of Southern California Law Center.

Janyce Mitchell joins from Strategic Patent Group, where she was a vice president. She received her JD from the UC Berkeley Boalt Hall School of Law, and her MS and C. Phil in Physics from the University of California, San Diego.

Stephen Sullivan also joins from Strategic Patent, where he was president. He will focus on patent prosecution for software companies. His JD is from the Santa Clara University School of Law.

David Roise joins from Ropes & Gray, where he was an associate. He is a former assistant professor of biochemistry and cellular biology at UC San Diego. He specializes in patent law. He earned his Ph.D in biochemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and his JD from Stanford Law School.

Founded in 2008, Virtual Law Partners is a distributed, web-based law firm that goes beyond the constraints of brick & mortar law firms to provide legal services at rates lower than those of conventional law firms. Powered by a digital infrastructure, VLP eliminates costly physical offices and minimizes environmental impact, while significantly lowering administrative costs and overhead.

Marshall Gerstein Attorney Establishes LGBT Scholarship

Erik Even — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 21:17:57 +0000

Jeremy D. Protas, an attorney with the intellectual property law firm of Marshall, Gerstein & Borun LLP, has announced the establishment of a patent law scholarship specifically for LGBT (“lesbian, gay, bisexual, & transgender”) law students intending to pursue careers in the field of patent law.

Candidates must be second-year students for the 2009-2010 academic year at an American Bar Association-accredited law school, and be eligible to sit for the patent bar exam.

Applications for the $1,000 scholarship are due July 31.

Protas joined the firm as a summer associate in 2003 and 2004, and in 2005 joined the firm as a full-time associate.

Chicago’s Marshall, Gerstein & Borun was ranked in the top 15% among 352 law firms as a “Top Patent Firm” by Intellectual Property Today (March 2008).