Professor Hricik recently appointed Chair of the Professionalism & Ethics Committee of the American Intellectual Property Law Association

Peterk — Mon, 21 Nov 2005 05:00:00 +0000

Professor Hricik was recently appointed Chair of the Professionalism & Ethics Committee of the American Intellectual Property Law Association (the nation’s largest IP group). He is trying to put together a list of ideas to push forward for resolution and, hopefully, action with the group. Any ideas would be appreciated. Among those he is considering:

Creating a rule providing that patent agents are “lawyers” for purposes of fee splitting rules (they are under the PTO’s rule, but they are not under some state rules), and providing that the PTO rule preempts contrary state law.
Adopting the position that, for purposes of access to discovery materials during litigation, a patent attorney or agent is not engaged in “competitive decision making” and so, without more, may have access to proprietary materials from the opposing party.
Advocating for a clearer preemption rule with respect to PTO ethics, so that we’ll know when state law ends and federal law begins.

If you are aware of other issues, he would love to know of them, or if you have positions on these issues to share, he would appreciate it. Many thanks hricik_d@mercer.edu

USPTO proposes updates to its ethics code

Peterk — Fri, 12 Mar 2004 05:00:00 +0000

The United States Patent & Trademark Office is updating its ethics code, which you can find in Word format (and as a 5 meg file) here. If you have comments on the proposal, please mail them toProfessor David Hricik.

Legalethics.com

Professor Hricik recently appointed Chair of the Professionalism & Ethics Committee of the American Intellectual Property Law Association

USPTO proposes updates to its ethics code