[ Press Release ]
Duane Morris Welcomes Two IP Partners in Chicago
October 2, 2007
CHICAGO, October 2, 2007 - Duane Morris LLP welcomes Daniel Cherry and Richard McLaren, Jr., both formerly of IP boutique Welsh & Katz, Ltd., as partners in the firm's Chicago office. Dan and Rick join the firm's Intellectual Property Practice Group, after more than 20 years practicing together as co-counsel in numerous trial matters.
Duane Morris's IP Practice, which consists of approximately 65 patent and trademark attorneys, has grown by nearly 50 percent in the last three years. The firm has more than 20 attorneys whose principal practice area is patent and trademark litigation. As a result, the firm has one of the largest groups of patent and trademark attorneys in a general practice law firm. The addition of these attorneys comes just weeks after the firm announced it had signed a lease to move to a larger office space in downtown Chicago, with plans for increased expansion in the coming year.
Daniel Cherry focuses his practice on patent, trademark, copyright, trade secret and unfair competition matters. He has extensive experience in trials and appeals, patent prosecution, trademark clearance and registration, licensing, client counseling, negotiations, and preparation of validity, right-to-use and infringement opinions. He assists a wide variety of companies, including those dealing with mechanical and medical devices, chemical processes, food and consumer products, sports equipment, digital electronics, agricultural products and computer software. Prior to joining Welsh & Katz in 1987, he was partner and head of the intellectual property practice at Cleveland-based Squire, Sanders & Dempsey LLP.
Dan is skilled in developing and implementing trial strategies which have helped clients obtain multimillion-dollar jury verdicts in patent infringement matters involving a diverse array of technologies. For example, on appeal in Eaton Corp. v. Rockwell International Corp. and ArvinMeritor, Inc., Dan aided in obtaining a reversal by the Federal Circuit of a multimillion-dollar jury verdict as well as a permanent injunction preventing the sale of Rockwell's truck transmissions. In addition, the court adopted Rockwell's original patent claim construction for the related technology.
Dan has also written on several intellectual property matters, counseling clients in adopting creative legal strategies in order to maximize return on intellectual property assets. He is a member of the American Intellectual Property Law Association, the Chicago, Illinois State, Ohio State and American bar associations, the Intellectual Property Law Association of Chicago and the Licensing Executive Society.
Dan received his J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School in 1976 and his B.S. in Literature and Aeronautical Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1970.
Richard McLaren, Jr. joins Duane Morris with more than three decades of first chair trial experience. He focuses his practice on patent, trademark, trade secret and complex commercial litigation matters, representing clients in the utilities, pharmaceuticals, manufacturing and automotive industries. He has served in an in-house capacity as principal counsel at Centerior Energy Corporation, the electric utility for northern Ohio. He also was associate general counsel at Ernst & Whinney, where he defended the accounting firm in courts across the United States. Early in his career, he was a partner in the Trial Department of Squire, Sanders & Dempsey, where he tried many jury trials and utility rate cases.
A skilled trial attorney, Rick has served as lead trial counsel in several significant intellectual property cases. In Holtz v. Conexant Systems, Inc., he represented the defendant in a case involving a multimillion-dollar claim of patent infringement for a data-compression algorithm used widely in modern computer chipsets. He achieved a summary judgment of non-infringement and several hundred thousand dollars in sanctions against the plaintiff, and subsequently won the appeal in the Federal Circuit. In Charter Nat'l Bank v. Charter One Financial, Inc., he successfully argued before the court to vacate a restraining order and deny a preliminary injunction requested against his client. Dan also served as co-counsel in both of these cases.
Rick is a member of the sections on Litigation and Intellectual Property Law, Business Law and Tort and Insurance Practice of the American Bar Association, the Chicago, Illinois State, Ohio State and Federal bar associations and the American Intellectual Property Law Association. He has also participated in the recent webinar "Trends in Patent Damages and the Impact on Litigation Tactics."
Rick earned his J.D. from Northwestern University School of Law in 1973 and received his B.A. from Yale University in 1967.
About Duane Morris
Duane Morris LLP, one of the 100 largest law firms in the world, is a full-service firm of more than 600 lawyers. In addition to legal services, Duane Morris has independent affiliates employing approximately 100 professionals engaged in other disciplines. With offices in major markets in the United States and internationally, Duane Morris represents clients across the U.S. and around the world.