Federal Judiciary

TexasBarCLE Advanced Patent Litigation Course - Day 1

By Michael Smith

This week my travels in the wonderful world of patent litigation take me to Carlsbad, California (just north of San Diego) where this morning I participated in the opening seminar of the 4th annual TexasBarCLE Advanced Patent Litigation Course.  Following an early morning meet and confer with patent counsel in a pending case (what day is complete without one?) I was on a panel entitled "Showing Your Cards - Obligations to Investigate and Produce" this morning with U.S. Magistrate Judge Don Bush of Sherman and Glenn Thames of the Potter Minton firm in Tyler, at which Judge Bush reminisced about his Army days storming the Hotel Coronado in San Diego (in maneuvers, of course).  The day was filled with really good presentations on local court practices, local counsel, managing outside counsel and joint defense groups, plus a great lunch speaker, Judge Ed Kinkeade of Dallas.  I'm particularly proud of my partner Clyde Siebman, who participated in a very useful panel on local counsel with the great gentleman of Texarkana, Damon Young, and Clyde's legal assistant Denise Lovelace of Sherman, who participated in a panel on How to Avoid Mistakes, easily the most useful panel of the day.

I skipped the afternoon golf scramble to work e-mails but went to the evening social.  I didn't get a picture of fellow seminar attendee Alberto Gonzalez (no, seriously, he's here, with the DataTreasury special master he's assisting, who's on a judges panel I will be moderating tomorrow) but did get a picture of seminar head honcho Dan Perez with the dedicated (and carefully cropped) State Bar staff, and of myself with attorney Amanda Abraham of my old firm, who I've known since she was our receptionist several years ago.  Actually before that - she was literally a gleam in her daddy's eye the summer I worked for him my very first job as a stocker in her grandfather's grocery store in Marshall many years ago.  She doesn't like me to mention that - it creeps her out - which is actually probably pretty reasonable, now that I think about it.  What can I say? Small town.

As I mentioned, tomorrow I'll be moderating a panel that includes former judges Layn Phillips (the DataTreasury settlement special master), Robert Faulkner, and current S.D. Cal. judge Marilyn Huff.  If anyone has ideas for questions - particularly for Judge Huff, who I don't know - feel free to text them to me at 903-930-5514.

Full post as published by Eastern District of Texas Federal Court Practice on August 01, 2008 (boomark / email).