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by Doug Brown
For
Virginia Business
December,
2003
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.
James Creekmore |
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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