Robert A. Armitage, 2019 Mark T. Banner Award Honoree

• Author: Shannon N. Proctor
• Position: Shannon N. Proctor is an associate with Keller and Heckman LLP in Washington, D.C. She can be reached at proctor@khlaw.com.
• Pages: 7-8

©2019. Published in Landslide®, Vol. 11, No. 6, July/August 2019, by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof may not be copied or disseminated in

any form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the American Bar Association or the copyright holder.

Section Focus

Mark T. Banner

Award

Write

Speak

Listen

Law

Robert A. Armitage, 2019 Mark T. Banner Award Honoree

A Conversation with Shannon N. Proctor

The ABA Section of Intellectual Property Law’s Mark T. Banner Award is presented to an individual or individuals who have made

an impact on intellectual property (IP) law and/or practice. Winners of this award have expressed a clear passion and enthusi-

asm for, and advanced the practice, profession, and/or substance of, IP law through extraordinary contributions to, among other

things, teaching, scholarship, innovation, legislation, advocacy, bar or other association activities, or the judiciary. For more informa-

tion on the award and past honorees, visit https://www.americanbar.org/groups/intellectual_property_law/mark_banner_award/.

AIPLA, and Intellectual Property Own-

ers Association, among others, shaped

the consensus that produced the Amer-

ica Invents Act—the most signicant

change in U.S. patent law since 1836.

In addition to his numerous awards

for his contributions in IP law, he was

inducted into the National Center for State

Courts’ Warren E. Burger Society in recog-

nition of his contribution to its mission to

advance the administration of justice.

Bob Armitage received his JD from the

University of Michigan Law School and

has a BA degree in physics and mathe-

matics and an MS degree in physics.

Bob, congratulations on receiving the

2019 Mark T. Banner Award!

Thank you. I was enormously pleased

and honored to learn I had received this

honor. My rst thoughts were about

Mark Banner himself. He was a won-

derful human being. He had an outsized

sense of humor, had a splendid record of

leadership in the IP bar, and was a gifted

advocate. As I reect on Mark—and

others who have received this recogni-

tion carrying his name—I have come to

realize just how much this award carries

with it a special responsibility to act in

ways that are worthy of it.

What led you to a profession in IP law?

I wish there were a better word to

explain my IP law career than seren-

dipity. As I approached law school

graduation, I was looking for jobs both

inside and outside the IP eld, and was

looking at positions both at law rms

and as in-house counsel. I had had only

a very limited exposure to IP law during

law school. In addition, my under-

graduate and graduate degrees were in

physics, and not engineering, so nding

a position in patent law in those pre-

Federal Circuit days was not a given.

To make matters worse, I completed

law school a semester early by tak-

ing coursework over both my 1L and

2L summers. This was a truly bad idea

because it meant looking for permanent

positions with no clerking experiences of

any kind to help guide a career choice.

What ultimately got me into the patent

profession was a job offer for a patent

trainee position in Kalamazoo, Michi-

gan. Kalamazoo was and is a wonderful

Midwestern community. The offer pre-

sented the opportunity to work at the

global headquarters for The Upjohn

Company, a large, multinational pharma-

ceutical company. It seemed like a great

venue in which to see if patent law might

Robert (Bob) A. Armitage is a consul-

tant on IP strategy and policy issues

and a member of the board of directors

for the American Intellectual Property

Law Education Foundation.

Bob Armitage completed a decade

of service as Senior Vice President

and General Counsel for Eli Lilly and

Company in 2012. Prior to joining

Lilly, he spent six years as a partner

in the Washington, D.C., ofce of Vin-

son & Elkins LLP (V&E) and 10 years

as chief intellectual property counsel

for The Upjohn Company. He has held

numerous leadership positions in the

IP bar, including as chair of the ABA

Section of Intellectual Property Law

(ABA-IPL). He served as president of

both the American Intellectual Property

Law Association (AIPLA) and the Asso-

ciation of Corporate Patent Counsel.

From 2009 to 2014, he was a member

of the Advisory Committee on Inter-

national Economic Policy to the U.S.

Department of State.

Bob Armitage has worked tirelessly

over decades to improve the patent law

system of the United States, includ-

ing writing and speaking extensively

to support patent reform. His lead-

ing efforts with the ABA-IPL Section,