"Judges just don't like IP cases," says Lora Mitchell Friedemann of Fredrikson & Byron, founder of Minnesota's IP Litigation Bar Group-the first such group in the country. "We'll give them IP survival kits that have things in them like No-Doz."
While the IP Litigation Bar Group acts as a sort of welcome wagon to judges new to the intellectual property scene, its main focus is bringing members together at quarterly meetings and social events to discuss current issues and share ideas, and to provide them with continuing education programs. About 56 members now attend these meetings, but in the beginning there were only three.
Kristine Boylen of Merchant & Gould and Becky Thorson of Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi had joined Friedemann for cocktails one evening about four years ago. "We started talking about how there are no bar groups for people who do what we do," says Friedemann. "There were groups of patent lawyers and groups of litigators, but there wasn't a group that focused specifically on patent litigation and other intellectual property litigation."
There was another good reason to create the group. At the time, Minnesota's federal court was seeking feedback about possibly adopting local rules for patent cases. "If we formed the group, we could help gather that feedback and create other substantive programs of interest to people who practice in this area," says Friedemann.
Luckily Friedemann's notes from that cocktail party, which she wrote on a napkin, were still legible the next day. "I was still excited about this idea so we pitched it to Judge Michael Davis, who was the president of the chapter at that time," Friedemann says. "Judge Davis liked the idea and gave us the green light to form the group."
But she doesn't take all the credit for getting the group off the ground. "The judges in this district were very supportive and involved," says Friedemann. "That was the key to our success in my view."
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