Intellectual property law is complex and highly competitive, and Roanoke lawyer James Creekmore has been navigating its turbulent waters since he began working at the Woods Rogers law firm in 1996. With the Internet raising constant challenges, this area of law is evolving rapidly. From trademarks to copyrights and patents, Creekmore’s practice puts him in the middle of the whirl.
As chair of the firm’s intellectual practice group, he works with a team of a dozen lawyers that wrestles with all aspects of the field. For the past 18 months, trademark disputes have ballooned. “It’s a reflection of the fact that businesses are recognizing that their product and their brand names are what bring value to the business,” says Creekmore. “They are taking much more care to protect their trade and brand names.” Opportunities for confusion caused by the Internet abound, sparking many disputes.
One of the best things about doing intellectual property law, Creekmore says, is the facility it gives him with the foundations of business. As a litigator, he spends plenty of time in federal court, but he also focuses on business strategy, helping businesses plan ahead and grow. “How many of their marks and their brands need to be registered, protected, enforced? How can we make sure that their competition is not riding their coattails to success?” These are questions his staff considers, because as Creekmore notes “we bring royalty income to the table. A lot of your bigger companies recognize that, and they have added significant dollars to the bottom line. … We try to be very vigilant.”
The practice is equally divided between litigators and business people. The business counselors are active in registering and filings while litigators spend their time enforcing the paper. Much of the trademark litigation, Creekmore says, gets settled out of court through alternative dispute resolution. Of the 16 active cases his team was handling in late October, none were being pursued in court.
It’s all quite a bit of responsibility for a lawyer just 10 years out of law school. Creekmore, 35, has been practicing as a litigator for seven years. The Chesapeake native received his undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia, before going to law school at the College of William and Mary. Following graduation there in 1993, he clerked for a federal judge in North Carolina for two years before joining Woods Rogers.
Creekmore ex-pects to remain in the intellectual property field. “With the Internet continuing to expand, I don’t see any retreat from intellectual property,” he says. “Domain registration continues to boom, and that’s confusing for a lot of folks.” For instance, companies wrestle with when they can legally use part of another company’s name for fair use or for parody use. “You find that with Web site deals, third-party contractors are prevalent. They are incorporating trademark and copyright. We have seen a lot of clients with contractual disputes who find out they don’t own as much of their Web site as they thought they owned.”
Music is another big area, says Creekmore. The practice represents several songwriters and singers engaged in disputes about their rights to CDs. “The more technology advances,” predicts Creekmore, “the more opportunity there is for intellectual property practitioners.” |
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