Friday,
November 16, 2012
Highlights
from today’s NAPABA D.C. Convention:
I attended
NAPABA CLE Breakout Session “Judge’s
Views on Litigating Complex Cases.” “This
interactive panel with a diverse group of judges from across the country
addresse[d] what lawyers need and want to know about litigating complex cases.”
This
session included:
o
Moderator
John
C. Yang
Director, Legal Affairs, ITW (China) Investment Co., Ltd.
o
Panelists
Hon.
Susan G. Braden
Judge, U.S. Court of Federal Claims
o
Hon.
Theodore R. Essex
Administrative Law Judge, U.S. International Trade Commission
o
Hon.
Lucy H. Koh
Judge, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California
o
Hon.
Amul R. Thapar
Judge, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Kentucky
Here
are some of my notes from this session:
·
In
a U.S. International Trade Commission Court, 95% of the cases are patent cases;
the rest are trademark and copyright cases.
Winning cases in this court can help with border stops.
·
The
U.S. Court of Federal Claims has 16 judges.
This court deals with money claims against the government. About 20% of the cases are patent cases
(involving government patents).
·
In
most courts, cases are designated randomly among the different judges so that
each can review approximately the same number of certain case types.
·
Regarding
complex patent cases, one judge said he used his law clerk (with a technical
background) to help learn about the technology of the case prior to the
trial. Some judges ask law schools to
provide them with law students having a specific technical expertise for judicial
internships/externships. However, the
panel generally recommends that litigators assume that a judge does not know
anything about a particular technology prior to trial. It is safer to assume that you are speaking
to a lay person.
I
also attended NAPABA CLE Breakout Session
“Climbing the Corporate Ladder:
Girlfriends Unite.” This
session discussed “[h]ow advancing in a small or large company or other
institution takes special skills, and the road for women continues to be
particularly challenging.”
This
session included:
o
Program
Chair and Moderator
Weili Cheng
Deputy General Counsel & Corporate
Secretary, The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, L.L.C.
o
Panelists
Preeta
D. Bansal
Global General Counsel , Litigation & Regulatory Affairs, HSBC
Holdings
o
Marie
Oh Huber
Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary, Agilent
Technologies, Inc.
o
Sandra
Leung
General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company
o
Wendy
Shiba
Ret. Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary, KB Home
o
Caroline
Tsai
Senior Vice President and Associate General Counsel, Bank of America
Here
are some of the interesting points of this session:
·
Self-promotion
is incredibly important, however, don’t over do it by promote yourself too much
or in the wrong way. It’s key to know
your audience and your firm environment.
·
Make
sure you know each and every person who is on the committee that makes
decisions on your future promotion.
·
The
panel discussed how ethnicity and gender play a role in the legal
profession. The article “Visible
Invisibility” was recommended. It may be
found on website: http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/marketing/women/visible_invisibility_fortune500_executive_summary.authcheckdam.pdf
·
Networking
is a skill that many people need to work at it.
·
Love
what you do. Wherever you are in your
career path, be in the moment.
·
If
you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.
·
Most
people learn the most when they are outside of their comfort zone.
I
also attended NAPABA CLE Breakout Session
“Patent Law: Perspectives from the Bench”
“With
Congress having recently passed significant patent law reform in the America
Invents Act, and courts at all levels wrestling with increasingly complex
patent issues. This session provide[d] a
rare opportunity to gain an insiders’ view on the role of the courts in shaping
patent law.
In
a panel moderated by an attorney from the United States Patent and Trademark
Office, Federal Circuit Judge Alan D. Lourie and Northern District of
California District Judge Jeremy Fogel share[d] their perspectives from the
bench on the history and development of patent law.” This session included:
o
Program
Chair
Jennifer H. Wu
Associate, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison
LLP
o
Moderator
Raymond
T. Chen
Deputy General Counsel, Intellectual Property Law and Solicitor, U.S.
Patent and Trademark Office
o
Panelists
Hon.
Jeremy Fogel
Judge, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California
o
Hon.
Alan D. Lourie
Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
Here
are some of the interesting points of this session:
·
District
court judges are not required to conduct a Markman Trial.
·
Fogel
(D.C. Judge) believes that the standard for reversing a patent case needs to be
more transparent.
·
Lourie
(A.C. Judge) says that more informal deference now exists between the CAFC and
District Courts.
·
Everyone
should stay tuned for the holding in the Retractable Technologies Inc. v.
Becton Dickinson & Co. case, which is currently on the Supreme Court’s
docket.
·
Chen
believes that the Supreme Court has becoming more and more interested in patent
cases. He states that 13 out of 32 cases
granted certiorari have been patent cases.
·
Although
the CAFC does not have circuit splits, there are intra-circuit splits.
·
Fogel
sees a theme in the recent rulings from the Supreme Court. He believes that the Supreme Court wants an
easier flow of commerce and may perceive the patent system as getting in the
way of innovation. He also believes that
Bilski has not been resolved and will be revisited.
·
Lourie
advocates the following two changes in patent law:
o
adding
an experimental use statutory exception; and
o
adding
an incontestability statute for patents after 5 years of use.
I
also attended NAPABA CLE Breakout Session
“General Counsel Survival Skills.”
“This
session discusse[d] how does a General Counsel and his/her colleagues and staff
keep their skills sharpened? How are they preparing for the future and plan and
mitigate the anticipated and unanticipated events? How do in-house lawyers
anticipate and manage for the issues not yet defined? What are the lessons we
are learning for the future?”
This
session included:
o
Program
Chair & Moderator
Don H. Liu
Senior Vice President, General Counsel and
Secretary, Xerox Corporation
o
Panelists
Tim
Cheatham
Senior Vice President and General Counsel, Walmart International
o
A.B.
Cruz
Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary, Scripps Network Interactive,
Inc.
o
Hyun
Park
Senior Vice President and General Counsel, PG&E Corporation
o
Veta
T. Richardson
President and CEO, Association of Corporate Counsel
o
Simone
Wu
Senior Vice President, General Counsel, Corporate Secretary and Chief Compliance
Officer, Choice Hotels International
Here
are some of the interesting points of this session:
·
Understand
the business, but have a staff of lawyers to know what is happening in the
legal arena.
·
Don’t
just be a roadblock to the business unit(s); instead try to be a team player by
helping to come up with possible solutions.
·
Your
first priority must always be to provide excellent legal advice.
·
GCs
tend to be a “happy” group of attorneys.
Surveys show that approximately 91% of GCs are happy with their careers.
·
Every
GC must have the courage to lose their job if placed in a position to
blow-the-whistle.
·
Learn
how to say no in a confident way.
·
The
panel generally does not recommend that an attorney go in-house right
away.
o
When
you move in-house right away, you tend to get viewed as always being a new
attorney. Going in-house right after law
school is ok, however, if you plan on staying with one company for the majority
of your career.
o
Most
in-house corporations do not have good training programs.
·
You
should know your business well. Know it
better than even your business counterparts.
If you know your client’s business then you can better anticipate things
and you’ll add more value.
In
the evening, I met several law students for dinner. We decided to go to Ming’s in Chinatown and
ordered several dishes to share. The
food was very good! Afterwards, we all headed
to the Newseum for a Late Night NAPABA social hour.
I
ended up parting ways with my new friends at the Newseum and headed to
Georgetown. Earlier in the day, I had met
a lawyer who subsequently invited me to something called a “3-Square Event.” The idea behind this social gathering was to
invite a party of roughly 50 people: 1/3 law students, 1/3 GCs, 1/3 partners at
major law firms. This networking event
was set at a drink lounge in Georgetown that specialized in serving gourmet
desserts. This event turned out to be
great! I mingled and exchanged cards
with an invited list of partners, GCs, and law students for about three and a
half hours before I got back to my hotel at 2 am, utterly exhausted.
-Grace J. Kim
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