Silicon Valley loves it some intellectual property.
Legal Pad ventured on Wednesday to the "2008 Year in Review: Major Decisions, Recent Trends, and Implications for Patent Licensing Practice" hosted by the mysterious-sounding Licensing Executive Society at WilmerHale's Palo Alto Office.
The astute panel of IP lawyers was introduced by Larry Udell, chairman of the Licensing Executive Society's Silicon Valley chapter and Mark Twain lookalike (can you tell the two apart?). Udell, who also works as executive director of Intellectual Property International, announced that the local chapter had won two awards from the society for highest attendance and most sponsors, beating out the vaunted Quebec and Kansas City chapters. And that's why our IP lawyers are so good — they go to every CLE event.
The informative discussion on the biggest cases affecting licensing was handled ably by WilmerHale's Nader Mousavi and Joe Haag and Palm assistant GC Doug Luftman. At the top of the list was, of course, Quanta v. LG, the recent Supreme Court decision on patent exhaustion.
The panel was good and the questioners lively, but Legal Pad wondered: Was it really interest in developments in substantive law that made Silicon Valley the top-drawing chapter? And then Legal Pad tasted the lasagna being served for lunch, which was delish — meaty and homemade tasting — and we understood why everyone really comes to these things.
— Zusha Elinson
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