IIT Chicago-Kent's Giles Sutherland Rich team wins the Midwest regional tournament and advances to the national finals
IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law students Daniel Allard '15 and Patrick Grimaldi '16 are the winners of the Giles Sutherland Rich Memorial Moot Court Competition's Midwest regional tournament held March 13 to 15 in Chicago. Allard and Grimaldi will face off against the winners from four regional competitions in the national tournament April 15 to 17 in Washington, D.C.
Sponsored by the American Intellectual Property Law Association, the competition focuses on patent and intellectual property law issues. The tournament is named for the late Giles Sutherland Rich, who served as a judge on the Court of Customs and Patent Appeals from 1956 to 1982. Judge Rich was named to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in 1982 and remained on the bench until his death in 1999 at age 95. Judge Rich's judicial opinions include some of the most groundbreaking, influential and controversial in modern U.S. patent law.
In this year's regional competition, Allard and Grimaldi argued a patent infringement case. The IIT Chicago-Kent team defeated John Marshall in the first round. The team competed and won against the University of Iowa in the second round and again in the finals.
Team member Daniel Allard graduated with honors from Michigan State University with a degree in applied engineering sciences. Teammate Patrick Grimaldi earned a degree in chemical engineering from the University of Dayton. The team is coached by IIT Chicago-Kent alumnus Jeffrey J. Mikrut '10.
Founded in 1888, IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law is the law school of Illinois Institute of Technology, also known as Illinois Tech, a private, technology-focused, research university offering undergraduate and graduate degrees in engineering, science, architecture, business, design, human sciences, applied technology, and law.
IIT Chicago-Kent currently offers a J.D. certificate program in intellectual property law. In 2002, IIT Chicago-Kent became the first American law school to offer a one-year LL.M. degree in International Intellectual Property Law. In the most recent U.S. News & World Report graduate school rankings, IIT Chicago-Kent's Program in Intellectual Property Law is ranked seventh in the country.
