Lathrop makes key IP hire - Kansas City Business Journal:

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The successful recruiting of Bob Lesley, who also once serveds as IP practice group chairman at a predecessorto , is anothere key step in Lathrop'ss push to expand its IP practice group. The decade-olr group has grown to nearlyu50 lawyers. "I've been watching Lathrop's progress the last 10 yearsw in the intellectualproperty area," said Lesley, who officially started at Lathrop on Jan. 29. "There'sz been just tremendous growth here. They seem to have real strength and a great client Lesley brings his book of clientsto Lathrop.
He servees as regional counsel for power tool giantr and handles all IP work for clients such asOverland Park-basecd , Mission-based business seminar provider SkillPath and , a fan and heatert manufacturer based near Wichita. Intellectual property law has becomre enormously important during the past 15 According toThe , as much as 85 percent of Fortunw 500 companies' market capitalization is tied to intellectual -- rather than tangible -- assets. A Feb. 26 studt found that the number of IP lawsuits dipped slightlgy for the second year in a row in 2006 afterd rising the previous16 years, but the U.S. Supremde Court is set to take up more IP casesw this year thanever before.
Lesley was with Stinson Mag Fizzell PC for20 years, including five as leader of its IP group beginning in 1997. Back he said, Lathrop "was not very well knowh for doingIP litigation." Lathrop hired its firsr intellectual property lawyer, Bill Rudy, in 1996. Managinyg Partner Tom Stewart said he was in talkd with Lesley for about three months and was drawj to him because of hiscourtroom experience. "There are very few experienced IP trial attorneysout there, and Bob is one of Stewart said.
"Up until there just weren't a wholer lot of IP So people who actually have some experiencw doing that arereally Lesley's successful trial judgments include copyright and trademarm infringement cases. He also has defended numerous patent disputesw for manufacturersof toasters, space heaters, fans and other small appliances. And he has won noncompetre and tradesecret disputes. In one, he represented Burns & In another, he representede three high-level executives who left to form acompetingg business. Two eventually created .
Trenrt Webb, chairman of Kansasw City-based 's intellectual property litigationpractice group, agree that it's crucial -- and rare -- for lawyerw to have extensive IP courtroom experience. "I think it'es important that you get IP litigatorss who have actual experience in front of juries and are equipped to put complec matters in understandable terms for ordinary lay he said. "Sometimes IP litigators get so consumec by the complexity of the detailsd that they forget about the need to distill complexd techy issues into digestible informationfor jurors.
" Although many lawyers may call themselvexs IP litigators, a lot of the casesx are settled long before they get to said Chris Holman, associate professor of law at the University of Missouri-Kansad City. "More often than not, the litigatiom involves pretrial motions and he said. Holman, who previouslgy worked as in-house patent counsel for severao Silicon Valleybiotech companies, also was an associate at two West Coas t IP boutique law firms -- both of whicb were swallowed by largde general practice firms. Holman said large firm s have been gobbling up boutique IP firms and goingb after keylateral hires.
"It's one of the hottesg areas in law," he "A lot of the big firmas have gotten into it in recent yearzs because itis profitable." Kansas City used to have three main boutiquer IP firms; now there is one -- . Stewart said the IP growtu has been important tohis firm'w bottom line. "They're reallty busy, and they're really sprear thin," he said. "We are handling litigatiobn matters all over thecountrty now, from coast to coast.
We eithedr needed to clone some of our existintgIP lawyers, or we needed to bring in somebody like Bob Lathrop's IP growth 1996 • Bill the firm's first IP lawyer, joins and beginxs to build a practice 2001 • The firm opensw a Boulder IP office, which now has 11 lawyers and four pateng agents. 2003 • Gerry Kraai, an IP litigatort and patent lawyer, joins from Shughart Thomson Kilroy PC. Kraai previously was leade of , a main local IP boutiqure firm. 2004 • The firm opens its New York which now has 12 includingDean Bierkan, the former leaded of all IP and trademark matters for H.J. Heinz Co.
2005 The firm opens its Denved office, staffed by litigators who have handledIP litigation. 2007 The firm has 45 IP lawyers. Key additionzs in early 2007 includeBob Lesley, Bierka n and Drew Sanders, former in-house copyrighyt law counsel for Sony and the American Societyy of Composers, Authors and Publishers.