Copyright Fundamentals:

Registration Issues Critical to Copyright Litigation (2.0 CLE Hours)

Selected Topics and Model Agreements Covered in Video and Materials

Login/Register

Speaker Biographies:

Barry F. Irwin

Founder - Irwin IP LLC

Barry Irwin has been litigating intellectual property and technology matters for twenty-five years. He began his legal career at a prestigious intellectual property boutique law firm. Three years later, Mr. Irwin joined one of the largest, most successful general practice firms in the world where he practiced intellectual property litigation for 18 years, the last fourteen as a partner, and the last ten as an equity partner. In addition to his active litigation practice, Mr. Irwin is an Adjunct Professor at Notre Dame Law School where he teaches both Patent Litigation and Advanced Copyright/Entertainment Law. Barry is also the Vice President of Lawyers for the Creative Arts.

Mr. Irwin is a first-chair litigation attorney handling high-stakes patent, copyright, trademark, trade secret, restrictive covenant, unfair competition, false advertising, and antitrust matters. He has also supported numerous additional lawsuits, in second-chair or supporting roles, that resulted in jury verdicts, summary judgments, and injunctions entered in favor of his clients. Barry is also counsel and advisor on Patent Office review proceedings and strengthening of intellectual property portfolios to protect key products, including broadening existing intellectual property portfolios and securing rights to third party intellectual property.

In 2018, Mr. Irwin was selected by Thomson Reuters as one of the Top 100 lawyers in Illinois as part of its Super Lawyers selection process. Barry is one of only 8 intellectual property attorneys on the list, and the only one from a small (under 75 attorney) intellectual property boutique. In 2015, Barry received the rare distinction of being named a Fellow of the Litigation Counsel of America (LCA). The LCA is an invitation-only honorary trial lawyer society composed of less than one-half of one percent of American lawyers, recognized through peer-review for accomplishments in litigation and superior ethical reputations. Each year, for over a decade, Mr. Irwin has been named a Leading Lawyer and a Super Lawyer. Barry also received Martindale Hubbell’s highest ratings (AV and AV +) in his first years of eligibility and each year thereafter. He is also a LCA Thomas R. Leavens award winner for his distinguished service to the arts.

Mr. Irwin is a 1998 Notre Dame graduate in Aerospace Engineering. He graduated Magna Cum Laude from its law school in 1992. He is licensed to practice in multiple states with numerous court admissions.

William T. McGrath

Member - Davis McGrath LLC

Bill McGrath has practiced intellectual property and business law since 1976. He is nationally recognized for his work in the field of copyright law, though his areas of concentration also extend to trademark and information technology law, as well as publishing law, trade secret law, and software licensing, and other matters relating to the high-tech and information industry. His practice involves issues relating to the ownership, licensing, protection and infringement of intellectual property rights, and he has litigated matters at each level of the federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, and before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board.

Mr. McGrath has experience not only in counseling and litigation in these areas, but also in arbitration and mediation. He serves as an arbitrator for the AAA on intellectual property and other commercial disputes and is a mediator for the Lanham Act Mediation Program in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

Mr. McGrath serves as the Associate Director of the Center for Intellectual Property at The John Marshall Law School where he has taught courses in Copyright Law and Copyright Litigation in the graduate program since 1990. He is a Past President of the Intellectual Property Law Association of Chicago and a past Chair of the Patent, Trademark & Copyright Committee of the Chicago Bar Association. He has also served on the Board of Trustees of the Copyright Society of the USA and the Board of the Lawyers for the Creative Arts. Since 2006, he has been named as an Illinois Leading Lawyer and also recognized as an Illinois Super Lawyer by the publishers of Chicago Magazine.

Mr. McGrath lectures extensively on copyright law and is the author of numerous articles, including more than a dozen articles for the IP Litigator. He is a two-time award winner of the prestigious Lisagor Award from the Chicago Headline Club for his IP Law column in the Daily Law Bulletin, and he has provided feature content for journals including the National Law Journal and Corporate Legal Times (now Inside Counsel). He is the author of two chapters on copyright law in the treatise Intellectual Property Law (IICLE 2008). He also is on the Editorial Board of the Journal of the Copyright Society of the U.S.A. and served on the Editorial Board for the ABA Intellectual Property Law magazine, Landslide, from 2008-2010.

Mr. McGrath received his B.A. from the University of Notre Dame and his J.D. from Washington University. He is licensed to practice before the United States Supreme Court as well as the Seventh Circuit and the Federal Circuit. He is a member of the Trial Bar in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

Adam Reis

Associate - Irwin IP LLC

Adam Reis is an associate at Irwin IP. He prepares patent infringement and validity opinions, petitions for inter partes review, and handles numerous aspects of litigation, including pleadings, discovery, and summary judgment motions. Mr. Reis has worked on intellectual property matters in several U.S. District Courts, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the American Arbitration Association, and the International Trade Commission involving various technologies, including dental appliances, video slot machines, winches, and self-balancing smartboards. He has also represented clients—both offensively and defensively—in disputes involving trademark and copyright infringement.

Mr. Reis recently helped secure a major victory for one of Irwin IP’s clients on summary judgment. At issue was whether an agreement adequately transferred ownership of intellectual property to Irwin IP’s client. In granting Irwin IP’s motion, Judge Gettleman of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois held that the agreement was unambiguous and that the plain language of the agreement clearly supported Irwin IP’s position. Mr. Reis played a crucial role in drafting the summary judgment briefs.

Mr. Reis also represents clients in transactional matters, including the negotiating and drafting of asset purchase agreements, contract provisions ensuring compliance with the Defend Trade Secrets Act. He has also represented numerous clients in the entertainment industry, including modeling agencies, photographers, authors, and a broad range of musicians across several genres of music.

During law school, Mr. Reis served as a board member for the Chicago-Kent Intellectual Property Law Society, helped establish an alumni-student mentor program, represented clients through the Chicago-Kent Intellectual Property Clinic, served as a shift supervisor helping pro se litigants at the Chicago-Kent Self Help Web Center in the Richard J. Daley Center in Chicago, and competed in the Saul Lefkowitz Moot Court Competition. Before starting law school, he worked as an Associate Chemist in Chromatography for Patheon Pharmaceuticals Inc. in Cincinnati, Ohio. As an undergraduate, he focused his research on membrane protein structure.

Mr. Reis is a member of the Associate Board of Lawyers for the Creative Arts and currently serves as a Vice-Chair of the Chicago Bar Association’s Intellectual Property Law Committee. He received his B.A. in Chemistry from Miami University in 2010 and his J.D. from Chicago-Kent College of Law in 2015.

Alain Villeneuve

Partner - Duane Morris LLP

Alain Villeneuve practices in the area of intellectual property law, assisting clients across a wide array of industries in corporate, intellectual property and immigration matters. He routinely handles patent and trademark registration, monitoring and defense efforts. Mr. Villeneuve has represented clients before United States and global regulatory and enforcement boards, including the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (USPTO) and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

A former nuclear engineer and a licensed U.S. Patent Attorney, Mr. Villeneuve is experienced in drafting patent applications in a number of fields, including mechanical, electrical, wireless and computer software, and has filed for international patent and trademark applications under the PCT and Madrid Systems. Notably, one of the patents Mr. Villeneuve secured was cited by the U.S. Supreme Court in its decision in Bilski v. Kappos.

Prior to practicing law, Mr. Villeneuve worked in France for approximately 10 years as an engineer and was qualified by the Commissariat a l’Energie Atomique, allowing him to work in the control room of a pressurized water reactor. He supervised a team of engineers in the design, testing and construction phases of a nuclear fuel transport system. He also managed a fuel storage site in Italy and designed the first international humid fuel transport cask. 

Mr. Villeneuve is an adjunct professor at Chicago-Kent College of Law, where he teaches International Intellectual Property Law. He was selected for inclusion from 2009 to 2013 as an Illinois Rising Star by Super Lawyers Magazine. In 2017, Mr. Villeneuve was selected by his peers as a Leading Lawyer in Copyright and Trademark Law, Intellectual Property Law and Patent Law.

Mr. Villeneuve is a 2003 cum laude graduate of the University of Illinois College of Law and a graduate of Ecole Polytechnique of Montréal. He is a native speaker of French and also fluent in Italian and English.

Login/Register