© 2012 The Texas Lawbook.
By Natalie Posgate
Staff Writer for The Texas Lawbook
Jennifer Sickler, an IP lawyer who has a wide-ranged client base, is moving her practice to Thompson & Knight’s Houston office.
Previously a partner at Houston’s Gardere Wynne Sewell, Sickler focuses her practice on all areas of intellectual property law, including IP litigation; transactional matters; and prosecuting patent, trademark, and copyright applications both on a domestic and international level. She has clients in the energy, biotechnology, chemical, oil and gas, entertainment and retail sectors.
According to Sickler, the new changes in the American Invents Act are going to cause some challenges for her practice and her clients because they will have to adjust to various changes such as shifting from a “first to invent” policy to a “first to file a system.”
“This will put pressure on entities to file patent applications on an expedited basis,” she said.
She also said that protecting clients’ trademarks on the Internet will be a hot issue in the year to come because new top level domain names are scheduled to be released in 2013.
“Defending patent ‘troll’ cases continues to be important, as new non practicing entities (NPEs) are entering the business,” Sickler said.
One of Sickler’s career highlights includes when she represented a scaffolding manufacturer in a trade dress infringement case in which she helped counterclaim and recover more than one million dollars in damages against the plaintiff for the wrongful seizure of Sickler’s client’s goods.
She also represented GNC Corporation internationally in connection with its IP portfolio.
“I had the opportunity to handle IP disputes in about 40 countries, and patent and trademark matters in probably more than 70 countries,” Sickler said.
Sickler said that Thompson & Knight’s IP litigation team and the firm’s statewide and national presence enticed her to make the move.
“I was intrigued by the opportunity to grow my practice with a firm with a larger platform,” she said. “I also look forward to collaborating with T&K’s IP litigation team in Dallas, which handles an impressive array of cases, and with Jeff Andrews, an IP partner in the Houston office who has a unique outsourcing practice.”
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