McAndrews, Held & Malloy Shareholder Christopher V. Carani Invited to Participate in Roundtable Discussion on the Future State of Design Patents
03.21.16
On April 8, 2016, McAndrews, Held & Malloy shareholder Christopher V. Carani will be one of 20 lawyers, designers, practitioners and scholars to lead a roundtable discussion on design-related IP law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. The event aims to develop and influence the direction of future legislation and other policy work pertaining to design law.
Co-hosted by the University of Pennsylvania Law School, the University of Pennsylvania Integrated Product Design Program and the Industrial Designers Society of America, the roundtable will focus on the identification and clarification of the conflicts that exist in the current state of the legal art relating to design patents. Since Apple v. Samsung, product designs have taken on a new level of importance, and design-related IP has emerged as a mainstream policy issue. The April 8 roundtable will be the first of three complimentary events, with more participants and a final objective of a framework for a legislative result.
Carani is internationally recognized in the field of design law. Last year, Carani and a former President and Executive Vice President of the Industrial Designers Society of America led a two-day seminar on the procedural and substantive legal issues involved in being an expert witness in design law cases.
To register for the roundtable, click here.
Christopher V. Carani, Esq., practices in all areas of intellectual property. He is a leading voice and internationally recognized in the field of Design IP (design patents, trade dress and copyrights), having litigated numerous design disputes, and published and lectured extensively on the topic. He represents some of the world’s most design centric companies, including the top filer of U.S. design patents. He counsels a wide range of clients on strategic design protection and enforcement issues, often called upon to render infringement, validity and design-around opinions. Carani has worked with clients securing over 2,000 design rights, both in the U.S and in over 70 countries around the world. He is the current chair of the International Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property Design Rights Committee and the immediate past Chair of the American Bar Association’s Design Rights Committee, and the past chair of the American Intellectual Property Law Association’s Committee on Industrial Designs. He has litigated numerous disputes regarding design rights and has served as a legal consultant and expert witness in design law cases in a wide range of industries, including consumer electronics and accessories, consumer retail products, furniture, medical devices, apparel, footwear, and sporting goods, to name a few. In addition, Carani has authored amicus briefs for landmark U.S. design patent cases, such as Egyptian Goddess v. Swisa, Lawman Armor Corp. v. Winner Int’l LLC, Calmar, Inc. v. Arminak & Assoc. and Richardson v. Stanley Works, Inc. Carani earned an engineering degree from Marquette University and a law degree from the University of Chicago, and went on to serve as a law clerk to the Honorable Rebecca Pallmeyer at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. He is a registered patent attorney and licensed to practice before the USPTO.
Carani is an Adjunct Professor of Law at the Northwestern University School of Law teaching intellectual property law. He is a frequent contributor to CNN on intellectual property law issues, and is often called upon to provide commentary to other major media outlets, including New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, NPR, PBS TV, CNBC TV, BBC, Bloomberg TV, and Reuters. Away from the law, Chris is a studied jazz musician who plays upright bass on the Chicago jazz circuit. Follow Carani (@ccarani) on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ccarani.