Welcome to the official blog of IP attorney John M. DeBoer (Me!). To
understand the context of this blog, if you so desire, requires an
understanding of how it came about. At the outset this takes me back to
2006, where I found myself trudging through law school and struggling
to have a grasp and understanding of where I would be after graduation,
but ultimately committing myself to the intellectual property practice
area. Given my engineering background, this made sense to me (or at
least the way I envisioned it): get legal experience, take IP courses,
pass the patent bar, and find a career at a great firm.
And then
reality set in. With a downturn in the economy and an overabundance of
new attorneys in the workforce, competition for entry level work was
painfully dumbfounding. Don’t get me wrong – if you had a top 10 (%)
GPA, and went to a tier1 law school, you were set. But for the rest of
us, not so much. Alas, working full time during school (impacted
grades), and going to STCL (tier4), were not exactly great for resume
fodder. Luckily for me I was able to work at the US Patent &
Trademark Office (USPTO) in Virginia for about a year, which ultimately
opened doors for me back in Texas. After all, there weren’t very many
new attorneys west of the Mississippi that had both passed the patent
bar and worked as a patent examiner.
However, after working for a
couple years in the patent world, I knew that I wanted my skill set to
grow into other areas, namely copyright and trademark law. Two-plus
years ago I did not realize the degree to which I would enjoy working in
the realm of copyright – but today I represent numerous professional
artists, provide pro bono counsel to new artists and artist-related
non-profit groups, and counsel on niche topics, such as the DMCA and
Indian Arts & Crafts Act.
During this period of time I have
unfortunately been exposed to the depth and degree to which artists have
been significantly and detrimentally been impacted by the growth of the
internet. Thus, a good portion of a typical month of work for me is
now devoted to helping my artist-clients deal with the exploitation of
their work in the digital realm. In doing so, I have encountered a
routine pattern of behavior and mindset that I believe is worth taking
time, at least periodically, to blog about. I welcome any feedback,
for better or worse, to the content provided on this site.
John
