Committee Chair Corner – Intellectual Property Committee
Sandy Wunderlich
Tucker Ellis LLP
sandra.wunderlich@tuckerellis.com
Intellectual property is a broad umbrella covering patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, and domain names, and the litigation that involves these issues. It is an exciting area of the law that impacts almost everything a company does—from developing and selling products and services, to managing its personnel, and everything in between.
The intellectual property of a company, known as its intangible assets, have become the most valuable assets of any company. It is estimated that the intellectual property of a company represents nearly 90% of its asset value, representing a significant change over the last 30 years. (See chart below.)
Given the importance of these intangible assets to our clients, the Intellectual Property Committee was formed to serve our members who are outside counsel practicing in this area, or who oversee these assets at their company. The Committee is actively engaged in offering high quality education through programs, Webinars, articles, and monthly calls. We are committed to growing the number of active members in our Committee so please consider joining the Committee, recruiting others to join, and if you are a member, consider how you might become more active.
Our Committee often pairs up with other Committees when proposing CLE programs or conducting Webinars because intellectual property overlaps with so many other areas of the law. We have paired up with the Product Liability Committee, Business Litigation Committee, Employment Law Committee, and Cyber Security, Data Privacy and Technology Committee among many others.
Over the past few years, the Committee has offered CLE programs at both the Midyear Meeting and the Annual Meeting. Since 2017, the Midyear Meeting programs have focused on “What Keeps In House Counsel Up at Night” from various industries. The first in the series featured in house counsel in the sporting goods industry; the second featured in house counsel from the entertainment industry; and the last one featured counsel from the music industry. In addition, the Committee has offered main stage CLEs at the Annual Meetings focused on important issues in intellectual property litigation in fun and interactive formats such as having a jury offer insight on whether certain trademarks infringe after speakers presented arguments, and using a game show format to present these issues to the audience. The Committee will have another exciting program featuring in house counsel in a game show format offered as a main stage CLE at the Annual Meeting in Asheville, NC.
There are multiple opportunities for members of the IADC to get involved with our Committee. This includes developing and speaking at programs, developing and speaking in Webinars, writing articles, recruiting new members, and making new friends along the way. We are a relatively small Committee, intent upon growing our ranks, which means there are many opportunities for those who want to get involved in the Committee. We host monthly calls on the second Wednesday of each month at 10:30 a.m. Central Time. If you would like to present a topic of interest, or just introduce yourself and learn about the activities of the Committee, please dial in. If you are working on an interesting case or tackling a challenging issue, we would love to hear about it. If you have an idea for a special project that would assist our members in serving their clients better, please share the idea with us.
I personally joined the IADC in June 2016, and attended my first meeting in July 2016. During the Annual Meeting that year, I attended the business meeting of this Committee. The Committee gave me the opportunity to get involved right away. Three years later, I have the honor of serving as the Chair of the Committee. I want to give others the same opportunity to get involved in this great Committee. In an effort to do that, we are hosting a business committee meeting on Wednesday, July 10, at 8:00 a.m. at the Annual Meeting in Asheville, NC. Please consider this to be an open invitation for anyone interested in getting involved in our Committee and shaping its future.
If you want to learn more about our Committee and the opportunities for becoming more involved, please feel free to reach out to me at sandra.wunderlich@tuckerellis.com.