Posts Tagged: "Patent Attorneys"

This theme reemerged later when we talked generally about computer implemented innovations. Judge Linn explained that wrestling with patent eligibility as it applies to innovations that require machine intervention “is a very complex issue,” which is made more complicated when you try and rationalize opinions from the Supreme Court. “I have great difficulty rationalizing the Supreme Court’s opinions in Flook and Diehr, and in many regards I think those decisions are irreconcilably in conflict,” Judge Linn said… “I don’t look at it as a low point. I look at it as an indication of the complexity of the issues,” Linn said. He went on to explain that the Court was “trying to resolve this complex issue in a way that made sense but reflected the precedent we had before us from the Supreme Court. In the end we just couldn’t agree. We got to the point where we recognized that the Supreme Court would have to give us the answer.”

Just as most of society wrongly considers doctors as “gods”, many patent clients wrongly think that patent attorneys will help them achieve these business objectives simply by filing a patent. To be fair, patent attorneys are not being hired to study the client’s market, nor their competitive position within the market. They are not hired to develop the client’s internal IP budget, nor to help the company strategically develop an IP portfolio that could boost exit value. Such an engagement could be fraught with conflicts and confusion. Unless attorneys make clear the limited and narrow scope of their services, and unless and until clients become more IP-savvy, clients will continue to incorrectly assume that all is fine in their Patent La-La Land; nothing is further from the truth.

I don’t know what is going on at Chadbourne & Parke, but I do know I know that Walt and John were both at Morgan & Finnegan and left for Chadbourne over 7 years ago. Morgan & Finnegan subsequently filed for bankruptcy ?several years later. Over time the best attorneys were slowly bled from Morgan & Finnegan, and virtually all of the rainmakers left. There were obviously internal problems of one kind or another, likely of a structural nature compounded by top earners and rainmakers leaving. Now I see top level attorneys leaving Chadbourne & Parke, one of them my friend who had enough sense to get out of Morgan & Finnegan years before they went bankrupt. Could this be a sign of what may become over the next several years for Chadbourne & Parke?

Prior to joining Stradling, Mr. Kong was Senior Corporate Counsel for Sony Computer Entertainment America LLC. While at Sony PlayStation, he was the lead attorney for the US R&D and Strategic Business Development Groups for the Sony entity responsible for Sony PlayStation matters in North and Latin America.

This proposed rule package adopts most ABA provisions wholesale or with minor revisions and codifies many professional responsibility obligations that already apply to the practice of law. Specifically, the proposed rules will streamline practitioners’ professional responsibility obligations, bringing USPTO obligations in line with most practitioners’ state bar requirements. The package also proposes to eliminate the annual practitioner maintenance fee.

McCann, who is now a partner in the firm’s Intellectual Property group, joins Thompson Hine in the firm’s Washington, D.C. office, coming over to the firm from Venable LLP. The addition of McCann comes on the heels of other recent additions of what the firm refers to as “top tier laterals.” McCann is a patent attorney with more than 30 years of experience, focuses his practice on the development and defense of patent rights in the chemical, biological, mechanical and software/business method arts.

It is important for employers to be open-minded when considering employing someone with autism or other disabilities. Those who are open-minded will find employees who are diligent, hard-working, and who take extreme pride in their jobs. Services exist for employers who are open-minded to potentially hiring a person with autism, but are concerned with how to hire or train someone with autism.

So, what is this International Be Kind To Lawyers Day? I am so glad you asked! Steve Hughes, a non-lawyer from St. Louis, has been working with attorneys for many years now through his consulting firm Hit Your Stride, LLC. Whenever Steve merely mentions that he works with lawyers, he is more often than not met with snide comments, jokes and scowls. He hears things like, “Lawyers? I bet that’s a treat.” Or, “Lawyers? You poor thing.” So he asked himself, “Is it too much to ask to be nice to lawyers for just one day?” And in answer to his question, not to mention as a result of his playing defense counsel for an entire profession, the idea for National Be Kind To Lawyers Day was born.