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Former Federal Judge Leonard Davis of Fish & Richardson Honored by New York Intellectual Property Law Association
Outstanding Public Service Award presented to former Eastern District of Texas Judge
Former federal judge Leonard Davis of Fish & Richardson recently was honored by the New York Intellectual Property Law Association as the 2016 recipient of the group's Outstanding Public Service Award.
Judge Davis is the 14th recipient of this national honor, which acknowledges extraordinary public service. He received the award during the NYIPLA's 94th Annual Dinner in Honor of the Federal Judiciary in New York on April 1, 2016.
After serving as Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Judge Davis joined Fish & Richardson last year in Dallas. He provides strategic counseling to both plaintiffs and defendants in intellectual property cases, in addition to conducting mock trials and mock Markman hearings.
During his tenure from 2002 to 2015, Judge Davis saw the Eastern District of Texas patent docket grow from only a few cases to one of the largest in the nation. He handled over 1,700 patent cases while being recognized as a national leader in innovative case management techniques in patent cases. He also served by appointment on both the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. Judge Davis currently serves on the Federal Circuit Advisory Council and he is the former Co-Chair of the Federal Circuit Bar Association's Federal Judges Committee. Prior to his appointment on the Federal Bench, he served as Chief Justice of the 12th Court of Appeals in Tyler, Texas, after working as a successful trial lawyer in East Texas for more than 20 years.
More than 1,500 intellectual property attorneys, judges, and government officials from the U.S. and abroad attended the NYIPLA awards ceremony. This year's dinner speakers were National Public Radio's legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg, and Peter Sagal, host of NPR's weekly news quiz show "Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!"