By Casey Sullivan
Jan 29 (Reuters) - The Atlanta law firm Kilpatrick Townsend
& Stockton is opening a Los Angeles office by acquiring an
intellectual property boutique, said John Pratt, the head of
Kilpatrick Townsend's IP practice.
Pratt on Monday declined to identify the IP boutique and
directed questions to a firm's spokesman who did not respond to
requests for comment. Five other Kilpatrick Townsend leaders
also did not respond to requests for comment.
By Tuesday, Kilpatrick Townsend had posted a Los Angeles
office on the law firm's website, with contact information
matching that of the eight-lawyer intellectual property boutique
Keats, McFarland & Wilson, whose office is in Beverly Hills. It
is unclear exactly when the firm posted the new Los Angeles
office information.
Keats McFarland is led by Anthony Keats, Dennis Wilson and
Larry McFarland. The firm's clients have included Sony Pictures
Entertainment, Yahoo! Inc., MTV Networks, Inc., among other
companies, according to the firm's website.
It could not be determined when and how many Keats
McFarland lawyers may join Kilpatrick Townsend and what their
roles might be. Neither Keats, Wilson or McFarland responded to
multiple requests for comment.
Kilpatrick Townsend, with more than 575 lawyers in 22
offices worldwide, offers a range of practices, including labor
and employment and litigation, but is widely-known for its
intellectual property practice. The Los Angeles office will be
its fifth in California.
In 2011, the firm represented Sony in its lawsuit against
George Hotz, a computer programmer who released instructions on
the Internet that allowed Sony PlayStation 3 users to modify
their game consoles to run pirated software and games. In 2000,
Kilpatrick represented the heirs of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
in a lawsuit against CBS Broadcasting Inc., which claimed that
the media company had infringed copyrights when it used portions
of King's "I Have a Dream" speech in a documentary by Mike
Wallace.
Kilpatrick Townsend grossed $362 million in 2011, according
to the American Lawyer, and its profits per partner were
$630,000.
Kilpatrick Townsend was formed in 2011 by a merger of the
intellectual property San Francisco law firm Townsend and
Townsend and Crew and the more general practice Kilpatrick
Stockton.
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