What it means
New technologies show up in patent disputes years before they show up in general conversation, and the vocabulary has to be there in advance. This is also the subject of Clarifying the Cryptic, a plain-language newsletter he writes on blockchain and digital assets.
What it means
A degree in how people are taught, earned without stepping away from a full time practice. Explaining a hard thing to people who did not come in knowing it is the daily work of a trial lawyer, and this is a formal study of exactly that.
What it means
Both at once. A patent case arrives at a company as a business problem with a legal procedure attached to it, and the two halves have to be weighed against each other every month it continues.
What it means
Two engineering degrees, which is why a schematic, a protocol or a piece of source code gets read directly rather than summarized back by an expert at an hourly rate. It is also what makes the patent bar available at all, since that registration requires a technical degree.
What it means
A separate admission from a law license, with its own examination and its own requirement of a technical or scientific degree. Only registered practitioners may represent applicants before the patent office. Most lawyers are not registered, including a great many who litigate patents.
What it means
The two state bars currently active. Texas and Tennessee are held on inactive status.
What it means
The single appeals court that hears every patent appeal in the country. A ruling there does not just decide one case, it changes what a word in a claim means for everybody.
What it means
The court that hears claims for money against the United States government, which is a different forum with different rules from the district courts.
What it means
A lawyer has to be admitted in the particular district court where a case is filed. Patent cases land all over the country, so the practical question when a complaint arrives is whether your counsel can appear where it was filed or has to find someone local to do it.
Jesse is a great mentor, leader, teacher, and friend. I worked with Jesse on many of his patent litigation matters as a junior associate at Shook, where he took a genuine interest in my professional and personal development.
What it means
Selected to give the baccalaureate address to the graduating class. It is an invitation to speak to people at the start of the thing, which is a different sort of recognition from the ones a firm can arrange.
What it means
INROADS places students into paid professional internships early on. He came through it before any of the rest of this existed.
What it means
A member.
What it means
Time spent inside a court rather than in front of one, watching how written argument is actually read by the people it is written for.
What it means
The same lesson one level down, on the appellate record and what a brief looks like from the bench.
What it means
Five years of governing a school, which is committee work and hard meetings rather than a title on a page.