[Ed Note: Our thoughts and prayers are with all those affected by the tragedies in Mumbai yesterday. The events are just another reason to be thankful for what you have this holiday season.]

If you’re working today — I’m so sorry. But ATL is with you, even though I’m still reeling from being RickRolled by Santa Claus and Macy’s.

If there are Half-Skadden or Skadden-Mart associates working hard over Thanksgiving weekend, I admire your professional commitment. For the rest of Biglaw associates spending Thanksgiving chained to a BlackBerry, I hope your work is rewarded.

But while we wait for additional firms to announce bonuses, we’ve gotten some additional information about another Biglaw “perk,” holiday parties.

We’ve covered firms like Orrick that are scaling back on holiday festivities, and firms like Kaye Scholer that are going full speed ahead. Are holiday parties an early indication of which firms will be in the spirit of giving come bonus time? We don’t have good information about the holiday plans at Cravath or STB.

But we do at Skadden. A Skadden tipster gleefully reports:

[W]e were just told that the annual Holiday Party is on December 11. Aren’t most firms canceling parties?

I can only imagine that the tipster sent us the email and then took a gold-plated bath.

Another holiday announcement, after the jump.

Steve Jobs did not invent the iPod. Neither did Bibble.

No, the inventor of the iPod is Kane Kramer, a British guy who stored three and a half minutes of music on a microchip in 1979.

In fairness to Apple, they did not “steal” Kramer’s idea. According to the Daily Mail, Kramer set up a company to develop the iPod idea:

But in 1988, after a boardroom split, he was unable to raise the £60,000 needed to renew patents across 120 countries and the technology became public property.

Patent law: how good ideas are redistributed from kooky inventors to effective businessmen.

And with that Kramer might well have been discard into the Farnsworth bin of history.

But thanks to a dispute between Apple and Burst.com, Apple needed Kramer. Apple flew Kramer to California to give crucial testimony about the prior art behind the iPod. The dispute between Apple and Burst.com was settled out of court, but Apple is stuck with the price of admitting that the iPod was invented across the pond.

Why Biglaw associates should support Apple giving money to Kane Kramer, after the jump.

* Nationwide Layoff Watch: Nannies. [Dealbreaker]

* Was Findlaw gaming Google? Bad, Findlaw, bad. [Real Lawyers Have Blogs]

* Stupid Patent Case of the Week? [Mendelson’s Musings]

* We knew him way back when: a profile of Atlanta AUSA Jon-Peter Kelly (with whom we went to high school and college). [Fulton County Daily Report]

* Blawg Review #173 — with a swimming theme. [Chicago IP Litigation Blog via Blawg Review]

A tipster sent along this patent application from Omaha attorney, Ryan Thomas Grace. The tipster says:

[I]t’s how a guy proposed to his fiancée. Pretty ingenious, provided she understands patent applications.

Here’s an excerpt. Who says patent attorneys aren’t romantic?

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

[0001] 1. Field of the Invention

[0002] The present invention relates to a method and instrument for proposing marriage to an individual. More particularly, the present invention relates to a unique method and instrument for proposing to an individual by which the proposor can righteously tout the uniqueness of the proposal.

[0003] 2. Description of the Related Art

[0004] Since the advent of the human race, endearment between two individuals has been expressed through various means. In the situation where a man expresses endearment to a woman, such endearment is sometimes conveyed through different avenues as the relationship progresses. As is custom in several cultures, once a relationship between two individuals progresses to a certain point, one of the individuals (a proposor) must propose marriage to the other individual in order to advance the relationship. The anticipation of proposing can impress a high level of pressure on the proposor to propose in a manner that will receive an affirmative response from the individual. As this custom progressed, the high level of pressure from the situation has sometimes forced the proposor into implementing non-traditional methods of proposal in order to woo the individual into an affirmative response.

Part of the invention requires that the proposal recipient mail the patent application upon saying yes and accepting the diamond ring. Since the application is on file with the USPTO, ATL congratulates you, Ryan Thomas Grace.

Patent attorneys seems to enjoy mixing their work and their love life. After the jump, check out part of the program from the wedding of two patent attorneys.

We’re rather late on this, but better late than never. Some time ago, one of you sent us this tip:

Fish & Richardson has asserted ownership over patents secured by a former principal who, in addition to being an attorney, also is a prolific inventor (and alleged “patent troll”).

Interestingly enough, Fish appears to have made its claims only after Google, one of its clients, was sued under a patent claiming a technology that Harris invented while at Fish. See Patently O, which has a copy of the Complaint.

What a mess. Anyway, we were reminded of the case yesterday, when it was picked up by Overlawyered:

Annals of creative patent lawyering: Highly placed attorney with intellectual-property specialists Fish & Richardson accumulates his own portfolio of patents, quits the firm, begins suing Fish & Richardson clients, things get messy fast (Patent Troll Tracker, Oct. 21).

We expect to be following this case for a while. If you have some inside info to share, please email us. Thanks.

Annals of creative patent lawyering [Overlawyered]
A Tangled Web of Patent Rights [Patently O: Patent Law Blog]
Fish & Richardson Strikes Back at Scott Harris [Patent Troll Tracker]
Patent Troll Sues Fish & Richardson [Patent Troll Tracker]

A reader drew a legally-themed music video to our attention:

It’s from a specialized patent blog, but some of your readers may find it funny — especially because is an actual partner from a large firm singing the song. Is this a new BigLaw marketing trend?

Check out the video via Patently O. As you can see from the lyrics, the song is a comparison of dating to the Patent Act.

Performer Lana Knedlik, a fine-boned, pixieish beauty, looks like she could be an indie film actress or Indigo Girl. She strikes us as considerably younger and more attractive than the average (1) registered patent attorney or (2) partner at a large law firm.

(No offense to patent lawyers or Biglaw partners. We’re just sayin’…)

Redefining the Bar Date [Patently O]
Bar Date by Lana Knedlik [YouTube]
Lana M. Knedlik bio [Stinson Morrison Hecker LLP]

Sometimes it seems like we talk about the same handful of general practice Biglaw shops again and again. So let’s mix things up a bit. Here’s a suggestion from a loyal reader:

I’m in the field of patent law. It might be interesting to post a Fall Recruiting Thread that discusses both patent boutiques (Finnegan Henderson, Fizpatrick Cella, Kenyon & Kenyon) and general practice firms with a strong IP practice (Kirkland, Irell, MoFo, Jones Day, Ropes & Gray).

Yes, it might. So here’s that post — an open thread in which people can talk about firms that specialize in or excel at intellectual property law.

(Last month we had a post dedicated to discussion of compensation issues at IP firms. But this open thread is intended to be broader, to go beyond pay to discuss quality of life, strong practice areas, type of work, etc. Enjoy.)

Earlier: Nationwide Pay Raise Watch: IP Firms

* No do-over for Vonage. [c|net via How Appealing]

* Legislature approves $5 million settlement in Florida boot camp death case. [CNN]

* Katrina wrongful death claims blown away by judge. [Jurist]

* Reno trial lawyer faces his own trial. [Reno Gazette-Journal]

* Fen-Phen plaintiffs have a horse in Saturday’s race. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Alaskan attorney survives icy spill. [CNN]

* “Scream” thieves sentenced in Norway court. [MSNBC]

* ABA hosts legal technology expo. [ABA]

* Supreme Court hears arguments in high school sports recruitment case. [Washington Post]

* Timetable of VOIP litigation. [WSJ Law Blog]

We have to step away from the computer for a while. Here’s an open thread about compensation issues to carry us through the weekend.

Three items for possible discussion (which some of you have already started talking about in a prior thread):

1. DLA Piper Singles Out Patent Litigators for Higher Pay [The Recorder]

This follows on the heels of Dechert’s D.C. office announcing higher pay for associates in its financial services practice group. Is differential compensation — a move away from lockstep — a hot new Biglaw trend?

2. The High Price of Escalating Associate Salaries [DC Bar]

From DC bar president James J. Sandman (at right), a partner at Arnold & Porter, writing in the March 2007 issue of Washington Lawyer magazine:

[F]irst-year associate salaries at big firms have gotten to a level where increases are very bad. They are bad for the law firms that pay them, for the associates who receive them, for the clients who foot the bill for them, and for the society we serve.

Sandman takes a swipe at the firm that initiated the latest round of pay raises (Simpson Thacher, cough cough):

I don’t understand what causes a firm be the first to increase the salary of a brand-new lawyer from an already eye-popping $145,000 to $160,000. There is no competitive advantage in doing so. Other firms will surely follow suit, and the firm that led the market will quickly be indistinguishable from the rest of the pack.

To read Sandman’s interesting and provocative argument against the recent raises, click here.

3. Finally, here’s the latest departure from the LIST OF SHAME: Baker & Hostetler.

From a source at the firm:

Baker Hostetler announced raises yesterday effective March 1 (for its New York office only). First-year associates will be making $160K; the managing partner didn’t say how much other classes would be making, but that associates would get letters about next week telling them what their new salary would be.

That leaves, as far as we know, just seven firms on the LIST OF SHAME.

Who knew that jurisdiction in the patent context could cause judicial tempers to flare? In MedImmune, Inc. v. Genentech, Inc., an 8-1 decision handed down earlier this week, Justice Antonin Scalia and Justice Clarence Thomas — who voted together almost 90 percent of the time last Term — exchanged harsh words.

Justice Scalia wrote the opinion of the Court, holding that a patent licensee doesn’t have to terminate or breach its license agreement before suing to challenge the patent’s validity. Justice Thomas dissented, finding no standing to sue.

From a tipster:

Scalia’s MedImmune opinion disembowels Thomas’s dissenting arguments one by one. See footnote 6 (“This is demonstrably false.”). Or footnote 9 (“It obviously is not.”).

One of my kids takes Synagis (a very very expensive medication), which is why I read the decision. While patent law is not my practice area, Scalia’s scorn is very clear and understandable to even a patent law layperson.

Now, Justice Thomas doesn’t take all this lying down. He accuses Justice Scalia of “misread[ing] our precedent,” “inappropriately rel[ying]” upon various cases, and committing “serious error.”

But this match must be scored for Scalia. Some other goodies (all in the footnotes, of course, where judges get to be catty and not feel guilty about it):

Footnote 2: “The dissent contends that the question on which we granted certiorari does not reach the contract claim. We think otherwise.”

Footnote 5 6: “[The dissent would be correct] only if the license required royalties on all products under the sun, and not just those that practice the patent. Of course it does not.”

In other words: “CT, get your head out of your ass!”

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor used to take criticism from Justice Scalia rather personally. But she should have realized that with Justice Scalia, it’s really not personal. To paraphrase what our mother told us in second grade, “Nino only picks on you ‘cause he likes you.”

P.S. To be sure, we suspect Justice Scalia doesn’t think very highly of Justice O’Connor as a judicial thinker — in contrast to, say, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whom he can respect even when they disagree.

MedImmune, Inc. v. Genentech, Inc. [FindLaw]
Court rules on right to bring patent case [SCOTUSblog]

Fred Fielding, the incoming White House counsel, did pretty well for himself when the Blackberry litigation was settled. His firm, Wiley Rein & Fielding, represented NTP, the patent holding company that won a $612.5 million settlement from Research in Motion, maker of the Blackberry. Wiley Rein took the case on a contingency-fee basis. Ka-ching!

But some people did even better than Fielding — like Donald Stout (at right), patent lawyer to the late inventor, Thomas Campana. Here’s an explanation of how the Blackberry spoils were divvied up:

Biggest single winner was Joletta Campana, widowed second wife and former secretary of patent-holder Thomas Campana Jr., who received one-third [of the $612.5 million,] or about $200 million. Wiley, Rein & Fielding also received $200 million, a huge sum given that in 2004 the Washington, D.C. firm’s two hundred and fifty lawyers generated about $140 million in total revenue. The final $200 million was shared by Donald Stout and some colleagues at his Alexandria-based law firm.

So how did Donald Stout spend his windfall? On real estate, of course. From Washingtonian magazine, via Wonkette, here’s an account of “The Stouthouse”:

Lawyer Donald Stout put up $6.8 million for a 15,000 square-foot Georgian on more than four acres near the Madeira School in Great Falls, VA — this after his Arlington patent-holding firm won a settlement against the makers of BlackBerry and earned him $177 million. HGTV’s Dream Builders featured the six-bedroom, ten-bath house in a segment taped before the sale.

Here are some photographs (Zillow on the left, Google Maps on the right):

WOW. This place makes the Feldsuk house look like a law school dorm. At a Tier 4 school.

For those of you who share our obsession with high-end real estate, there’s more discussion of The Stouthouse, plus links, after the jump.

* It helps the People’s case when an alleged polygamist doesn’t look like Brad Pitt or, you know, anyone non-creepy. [AP via Yahoo! News]

* “Low blood sugar” is to an opera singer what “exhaustion” is to an anorexic poppet du jour. [International Herald Tribune]

* What would the holidays be without a child left in a car while his mother picks something up at Neimans? Don’t even think of invoking the “Last-Minute Shopping Hysteria” defense — she brought along the dog. [East Valley Tribune]

* Necessity may be the mother of invention, but obviousness is its eccentric aunt. I don’t know if that makes sense, but check out the proof of what you knew all along — that you’re completely expendable. [Temporary Attorney]

* Sad, senseless deaths. One would think that such risks would exist only in the world of criminal defense, prosecution, and maybe divorce law. [WSJ Law Blog]

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in the case of KSR International v. Teleflex. Here’s our quick-and-dirty summary of the proceedings.

Subject Matter / Question Presented: To qualify for patent protection, an invention must be novel, useful, and not “obvious” to a person of “ordinary skill” in the field. So how do you determine “obviousness” when you have an invention that combines already-existing products? And is the Federal Circuit’s three-part “teaching-suggestion-motivation” test for obviousness a bunch of moronic nonsense?

Money Quote(s):

From the NYT:

When [veteran SCOTUS litigator Tom] Goldstein noted that “every single major patent bar association in the country has filed on our side,” the chief justice interjected: “Well, which way does that cut? That just indicates that this is profitable for the patent bar.” And when Mr. Goldstein referred to experts who had testified that the Teleflex patent was not obvious, the chief justice asked: “Who do you get to be an expert to tell you something’s not obvious? I mean, the least insightful person you can find?”

From the Legal Times:

“Three imponderable nouns,” is how Justice Antonin Scalia dismissed the test, also calling it “gobbledygook” for good measure.

Likely Outcome: The Federal Circuit will probably get benchslapped by the SCOTUS. As Tony Mauro notes:

[W]hen Justice Stephen Breyer said he had read the briefs in the case “15 times” and still could not understand the “motivation” prong of the test, Scalia chimed in, “Like Justice Breyer, I don’t understand.”

The implied message to the Federal Circuit seemed to be: If two of the brainier justices on the Supreme Court don’t have a clue what you are talking about, a new test might be in order.

For those of you looking for a substantive, eyewitness account of the argument, we reprint below the report of Joseph (Jay) R. DelMaster, Jr., a partner at Drinker Biddle & Reath in Washington. His account includes advice about how to proceed in patent prosecutions while we await the Supreme Court’s decision.

Check it out, after the jump.

* Thesauruses can still do the trick. Who knows if I would have passed AP English without one? On the other hand, one of the perks of public high schools is having your Cliffs Notes-cribbed essay graded by a teacher qualified only to teach woodshop and coach girls’ softball. [New York Times]

* What would the Supreme Court say about McDonald’s plans to patent its sandwich-making process? [CNN Legal Pad]

* Ah, law school flirting is just so cute. [Overheard in New York]

* While the poodles seem to be safe, babies, sadly, are not. [WCSH Portland]

* Blood money, in a way. Because someone killed my will to love. [Newsweek via Overlawyered]

During the long-running patent litigation between NTP and Research in Motion, Blackberry uses periodically had to confront the possibility of having their happily vibrating devices rendered useless. Such an apocalyptic scenario was averted when RIM settled with NTP — for the handsome sum of $612.5 million (of which $200 million wound up in the coffers of D.C. powerhouse firm Wiley, Rein & Fielding).

Now it’s time for users of another wireless email device to get stress-induced acne breakouts. From the New York Post:

NTP, the tiny Richmond, Va.-based patent-holding company, is setting its sights on industry giant Palm for [patent infringement].

NTP’s lawsuit against the maker of the popular Treo smart phones raises the specter of a prolonged legal battle similar to the one that kept millions of BlackBerry users on tenterhooks as they awaited a federal judge’s ruling on whether they could continue using their cherished mobile e-mail devices.

Palm reportedly has $500 million in cash lying around, so they should be able to pay a sizable settlement — or defend the lawsuit vigorously.

But maybe they can also set up a little legal defense fund. Treo-toting celebs like Lindsay Lohan will probably be more than happy to chip in, to preserve their uninterrupted access to good vibrations.

(Speaking of email troubles, we’re still having some of our own. See here.)

NPT Now Schemes for Palm [New York Post]