Kirkland won the award for US patent case of the year for its work on Tafas v Dudas and also was named firm of the year for national patent contentious work.
Fish & Richardson won for both life sciences/biotechnology and ITC litigation, while Fross Zelnick picked up the awards for national copyright and national trade mark prosecution work.
More than 40 awards were presented to the leading firms in the US, Canada and, for the first time this year, Mexico, during a dinner held in the Four Seasons, Washington DC on March 26. Guests attending included representatives of AIPLA, INTA, IPO, the USPTO and the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
Bill Lee of WilmerHale was named US IP practitioner of the year, beating out a shortlist of hard-hitting competitors.
The award for full-service US IP firm of the year went to Finnegan for the second year in a row.
The most US regional awards went to Kilpatrick Stockton, who took home trophies for firm of the year in the south for trade mark prosecution, patent prosecution, trade mark contentious and copyright.
In Canada, Gowlings cleaned up with four awards for its work on the top patent and copyright cases of the year, as well as national patent prosecution and trade mark prosecution.
Managing IP also presented awards to Olivares & Cia for Mexican patent firm of the year and Uhthoff Gomez Vega & Uhthoff for Mexican trade mark firm of the year
John Doll, USPTO acting director, presented two achievement awards at the event. Jacqueline Leimer won for outstanding achievement in IP and Mike Kirk was honoured for lifetime achievement. Both recipients said they were happy to be awarded for doing something that they love.
Last year's lifetime achievement winner, Judge Pauline Newman of the Federal Circuit, and Chief Judge Paul Michel also attended the event as guests.
Click here to read a full list of awards winners.
Full reports, and photos, from the awards dinner will be published in the May 2009 issue of Managing IP, available online on May 1.
Managing IP's global awards, including awards for the firm of the year in more than 30 countries, will be held in London on March 31 and the winners' names will be available online straight afterwards.
