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Raj Echambadi President | Illinois Institute Of Technology

Design patent expert joins Chicago-Kent College of Law faculty

Sarah (Fackrell) Burstein has joined the faculty of Chicago-Kent College of Law as a professor in the fall of 2024. Burstein, who has previously taught at Suffolk University Law School and the University of Oklahoma College of Law, began her legal career in Chicago after earning her J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School. She practiced as an intellectual property litigation associate at Kirkland & Ellis LLP.

“Chicago is a great city for intellectual property law,” Burstein stated.

Burstein discovered design patents during her early years in practice. "It wasn’t until I’d been in practice for a couple of years that I discovered there was something called a design patent," she said. Design patents focus on protecting how things look, which piqued Burstein's interest due to her background in art and design. She holds a B.A. in art and design and journalism and mass communications from Iowa State University.

She noted that many individuals interested in design patents come from science and tech backgrounds, but she felt she could offer a unique perspective. “For the most part, the people who were writing and interested in this were engineers, people with science and tech backgrounds," Burstein explained.

Burstein delved into understanding design patents further since they have existed since 1842 but still present unresolved questions about their application by courts. For instance, she questioned whether a design patent for a chair protects only its shape or extends to other objects like dollhouse furniture or gummy candies.

Her work gained recognition when her paper “The Patented Design” was cited in the 2019 court decision Curver Luxembourg, SARL v. Home Expressions Inc., resolving some uncertainties around these issues.

Burstein's current research explores new forms of IP litigation involving online sales where judges may apply financial pressure on accused infringers without them being aware initially. She highlighted a case involving country music singer Luke Combs where sellers faced large judgments without prior knowledge due to secret filings.

Burstein expressed concern over these practices: “When people start filing these in secret with no details, with no pictures, I am not inclined to believe that these are somehow magically going to be so much better in quality than what we see in public.”

She has published work on this subject titled “The Counterfeit Sham” and plans more projects related to it. Being based at Chicago-Kent offers proximity to federal court cases filed predominantly in Illinois' Northern District, which is becoming central to such IP litigation.

“Chicago has become the epicenter of this quiet earthquake in IP litigation,” she remarked regarding its significance for both research opportunities and educational collaboration with colleagues focused on intellectual property law at Chicago-Kent.

“It is exciting that we have a design center...Chicago-Kent is the place to be for design law,” Burstein concluded about joining forces with fellow professors aimed at enhancing student education through robust programs dedicated towards intellectual property studies.

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