"Jack" Cooper is a retired partner at Foley & Lardner LLP. A past chair and member of the firm's Mechanical & Electromechanical Technologies Practice and Antitrust Practice, Mr. Cooper's areas of practice included patent, trademark, trade secret, and unfair competition counseling; patent prosecution and licensing; antitrust counseling in intellectual property and distribution matters; and the corporate management of intellectual property rights.
Mr. Cooper has extensive litigation experience, including more than 30 patent litigation matters. His technical background encompasses organic, polymer and paper chemistry, packaging, food processing, water purification and treatment; hardware and houseware products; metallurgy, corrosion, and automotive products; building products and materials; and wireless and internet business methods.
Mr. Cooper had actively participated in the firm's IP valuation practice. He analyzed portfolios in litigation, acquisition, divestiture, licensing, and cross-licensing situations, and has been charged with eliminating patent assets from portfolios which were not justifying the expense of maintaining them. He also worked on filling "white spaces" in existing portfolios, through filing and/or acquisition, and/or licensing.
Mr. Cooper also had extensive experience managing very large intellectual property portfolios for multi-national companies and matching teams of Foley attorneys with client technology and legal needs. Serving as general IP counsel for two Fortune 500 companies, he was intimately involved in establishing efficient and cost effective IP filing and maintenance processes; invention disclosure systems; rationalization of foreign associate relationships; and enhancing communication between inventor groups working on similar technology in different geographic locations. He worked on joint venture, joint development, and engineering service provider agreements, as well as processes for protecting confidential information of clients involved in such third-party relationships.
In addition to his intellectual property practice, Mr. Cooper counseled several national and international trade associations in antitrust and other association matters. He has extensive experience in standard setting procedures and more recently in sustainability issues in a variety of industries, including automotive and retailing.
Mr. Cooper earned his J.D. from American University in 1972. He was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree from Duke University in 1964, and a Ph.M. from George Washington University in 1969. He was a member of the State Bar of Wisconsin, American Bar Association, and the Wisconsin Intellectual Property Law Association. Mr. Cooper was listed in The Best Lawyers in America® for 14 years.
In recognition of his achievements, Mr. Cooper was Peer Review Rated as AV® Preeminent™, the highest performance rating in Martindale-Hubbell's peer review rating system.
He was admitted to practice in Wisconsin and registered to practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office and was an examiner at the USPTO for five years before entering private practice.