David Donoghue is Vice Chair of IPLAC’s Litigation Committee. He is a technology litigator and Holland and Knight, where he focuses on litigation in patents, trade secrets, and trademarks, and where he is the head of the firm’s IP Group.
David joined IPLAC recently at the request of Leif Sigmond, to help Leif reinvigorate the Litigation Committee – and reinvigorate they have! The Litigation Committee has been among the more active committees in recent months, hosting several significant events.
David explains his approach to rethinking this committee: “One of the great things about IPLAC is that it brings you into a community with IP practitioners across Chicago. We wanted this committee to better reflect the friendships within that community, and to help grow them for others as well. We reached out to people we respected within the Chicago IP litigation community and asked them for ideas on what sort of content mattered most to them. What sort of events they would be most interested in attending.”
David, Leif, and the Litigation Committee ended up putting together several presentations, like the damages seminar, on which the dynamic Judge Alan Albright of the Western District of Texas served as a main panelist. They also received an invitation from Chief Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer of the Northern District of Illinois to put on a program in connection with the court around teaching patent litigation to the district’s law clerks. “That was a really dynamic, exciting program. I was thrilled to play a role in it, and for our committee to have been able to help the court better understand and address patent litigation at the district level. We look forward to making it an annual event.”
David values creating opportunities for both learning and networking through the committee and finds that so far, learning has been the easier function to target, with remote work making it easier to pop into a seminar. But both learning and networking are core to IPLAC, and thus core to the Litigation Committee.
To any young attorneys and law students interested in pursuing IP litigation, David advises getting down to the courthouse. “You have a great resource right here in Chicago. We have one of the busiest IP courts in the country for both patent and trademark claims, and there is far more copyright litigation in Chicago than one might expect. That means you have the opportunity to go see it and learn from it. The courts are right there for you to experience.” David also advises getting involved in IPLAC. “Do the networking! Go to the golf outing where you get to spend hours with practitioners. Go to the events and learn, ask questions, introduce yourself. Showing other practitioners how much you care makes a powerful impression – more meaningful than almost anything you can do in a half-hour interview.
If you’re interested in getting involved, now is a great time to join the Litigation Committee. “We have great momentum because practitioners have gotten involved. We need you to carry that momentum forward so we can keep growing.”