Jonathan la phillips

Jon focuses on intellectual property litigation, intellectual property procurement, commercial litigation, and internet law issues. Regardless of the practice area, Jon believes inventive and well-developed strategies, aggressively implemented from the outset generally yield the best, and most cost effective, results for our clients.

A versatile litigator, Jon has handled contested matters at federal trial and appellate courts across the country, the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, the World Intellectual Property Organization, Illinois’ state trial and appellate courts, the Illinois Commerce Commission and other Illinois administrative agencies.

Background

Jon attended Bradley University, earning a bachelors of science in chemistry. Thereafter he earned his juris doctor and certificate in intellectual property law from DePaul University College of Law. Not only practicing the law, he also teaches Intellectual Property and the Entrepreneur at Bradley University. Jonathan was also a founding board member of Startup Peoria, an organization aimed at assisting entrepreneurs and facilitating growth of a startup community in the Peoria, Illinois area. He continues to be active in the Illinois startup and entrepreneurial ecosystem through assisting similar organizations and representing startups and entrepreneurs. Otherwise, he travels the world and spoils his dog.

Leadership & recognition

Jon is a member of the Illinois State Bar Association. He is current Chair of the IP section counsel. He is a former chair of the Energy, Utilities, Telecommunications, and Transportation Section Council and is a member of its Federal Civil Practice section council and the Standing Committee on AI. Jon is also a member of the Copyright Society, the Federal Bar Association for the Central District of Illinois and, like all members of the Firm, is also a member of the International Trademark Association.

Leading Lawyers has repeatedly named Jon as an Emerging Lawyer in Intellectual Property Law; Public Utilities Law: Gas/Water/Electric; Energy Law; and Commercial litigation. Only two percent of lawyers under 40 earn this recognition.

  • Supreme Court of the United States

    State of Illinois, trial and appeal courts

    United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit

    United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit

    United States District Court for the Central District of Illinois

    United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois

    United States District Court for the District of Colorado

    United States District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma

    United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan

    United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri

    United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas

  • Jon has practiced before the following administrative bodies:

    United States Trademark Trial and Appeal Board

    United States Patent and Trademark Office

    Illinois Commerce Commission

    Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA)

    Illinois Department of Labor

    Illinois Department of Human Rights

  • through temporary pro hac vice admissions, practiced in courts such as the

    United States District Court for the District of Arizona

    United States District Court for the District of D.C.

    United States District Court for the Central District of California

    United States District Court for the Northern District of California

    Unite States District Court for the Northern District of Florida

    United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida

    United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana

    United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana

    United States District Court for the Western District of Kentucky

    United States District Court for the District of New Jersey

    United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York

    United States District Court for the Southern District of New York

    United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina

    United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee

    United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee

    United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas

    United States District Court for the Western District of Texas

    Court of Common Pleas, Franklin County, Ohio

Where Jon practices

  • This article explores recent FTC rulemaking affecting e-commerce providers using either online reviewers, auto renewing subscriptions, or both. Baron, S., Phillips, J., Hall, L., , Intellectual Property, Ill. State Bar Assn., Vol. 63, No. 1 (Sept. 2023)

  • Item description With enactment of Illinois’ Fair Food and Retail Delivery Act, the General Assembly barred third parties from using restaurants’ and bars’ trademarks and other intellectual property without their permission. How the defense of nominative fair use will apply under this law, meant to curb food delivery app misbehavior, is unclear.

  • This article discusses the Supreme Court’s opinion in Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corp. v. Wall-Street.com, LLC. There, the Supreme Court resolved a split among the appellate circuits and conclusively required registration of a copyright prior to filing suit.

  • This article, published by the Illinois State Bar Association, discusses three pieces of legislation impacting solar developments in Illinois.

  • The Northern District of Illinois recently adopted a Mandatory Initial Discovery Pilot Program. That program essentially front-loads newly cases. In doing so, the MIDP forces forcing litigants to disclose a far greater amount of information than Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26 ever did. Given copyright trolls past difficulty in producing evidence of copyright infringement at the outset of cases, and later at summary judgment, will this program end trolling in the Northern District of Illinois?

    Note: In the year since this article, the MIDP has not slowed filings in the Northern District of Illinois.

  • The Supreme Court recently amended the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The changes focused, in part, on the need for early and active judicial case management. The goals of these amendments were to ensure cases moved along at the outset and electronically stored information is preserved. The new Rules became effective on December 1, 2015. Attorneys handling BitTorrent related copyright litigation should take note. This is particularly true for the Illinois attorney, where the Northern District of Illinois remains a hotbed of copyright litigation involving the BitTorrent protocol. Accordingly, these amendments maychange the way Northern District judges approach these cases.

  • This article, which was published by InterBusiness Issues - a monthly magazine, primarily dealt with the history of Copyright law as a fundamental feature of the Constitution as well as the use and exploitation of these rights to secure revenue for our creative professionals.

  • This article published in the May/June 2010 edition of the Food and Drug Law Institute’s Update trade magazine discusses the current disagreement on reverse payments in pharmaceutical litigation. It touches on court opinions, legislative action, the Hatch-Waxman Act, and executive action pertaining to this intersection of patent law, the FDA, and antitrust law. (Article provided with permission of FDLI).

  • Estolides, oligomeric secondary esters of fatty acids, have been shown to have properties that make them suitable as potential motor oil. Previous research in synthesizing estolides has only been done with a mixture of estolide numbers (EN) for any given chain length. These studies show that with mixed EN of 2 – 3, a 10 carbon chain capped estolide yielded the lowest pour point (PP). To better determine what effect chain length alone has on the physical properties of estolides, monoestolides were synthesized with varying chain capping lengths, and then tested to determine physical properties. Pyridine catalyzed reactions of hydroxy methyl stearate and anhydrides of appropriate carbon chain lengths (acetic, butyric, and hexanoic) produced estolides possessing an EN of 1. For longer chain lengths, a tin octoate catalyzed reaction between hydroxy methyl stearate and the appropriate carboxylic acid produced estolides that once distilled possess an EN of 1. Data obtained from testing showed that trends emerged in pour point, cloud point and viscosity measurements. This data shows that physical properties of interest are influenced by chain length.

Publications