Carani, Christopher V.

Christopher V. Carani, a partner and shareholder, has been at the firm since 1995. He practices in all areas of intellectual property law with particular emphasis on design law.

Chris has extensive experience litigating design patent cases, including representations before U.S. district courts, the Federal Circuit, U.S. Supreme Court and the ITC. In 2015, IAM Magazine included Chris in its IAM Patent 1000 referring to him as one of the U.S.’s “pre-eminent design law experts.” In the 2016, IAM Magazine noted that he “is one of the nation’s top design patent specialists.”

Chris has extensive experience in creating valuable design right portfolios. He represents some of the world’s most design centric companies, including the top filer of U.S. design patents. He has procured thousands of strategic design rights, both in the U.S and in over 70 countries around the world. He counsels a wide range of clients (big and small) on design protection and enforcement issues and is often called upon to render infringement, validity and design-around opinions. 

In the landmark design patent case Egyptian Goddess v. Swisa, Chris authored amicus briefs on behalf of the AIPLA at both the petition and en banc stages, taking positions which were ultimately adopted by the Federal Circuit and thereby reshaping U.S. design patent jurisprudence. In Calmar, Inc. v. Arminak & Assoc., Chris authored a brief on behalf of the Industrial Design Society of America in support of a petition for writ of certiori to the U.S. Supreme Court. 

Chris is currently the chair of the International Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property (AIPPI) Design Rights Committee. He is the former chair of the American Bar Association’s Design Rights Committee, and also the American Intellectual Property Law Association’s (AIPLA) Committee on Industrial Designs.  Chris is currently serving a 3-year appointment to the Board of Directors for the U.S. chapter of AIPPI.

Chris is on the faculty of the Northwestern University School of Law as an Adjunct Professor of Law teaching Intellectual Property Law & Policy, a course which covers patent, trademark, copyright and trade secret law. Chris is also an Adjunct Professor at Chicago-Kent College of Law teaching a course on Design Law, which is one of only a few such courses in the U.S.  

Prior to joining McAndrews, Chris served as a law clerk to the Honorable Rebecca R. Pallmeyer at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Chris was conferred his Juris Doctorate from The Law School at The University of Chicago.  He also holds a Bachelor of Science in Engineering from Marquette University.

He is licensed to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals and other U.S. District Courts. He is a registered patent attorney licensed to practice before the USPTO. Chris has received numerous awards and accolades, including IAM Patent 1000 (2015-18), Super Lawyers (2007-2018), IP Stars (2018) and Leading Lawyers Network (2012-18). In 2018, Chris was named one of the “Top 100” attorneys in Illinois by Thomson Reuters in its Super Lawyers publication.

He has published and lectured extensively on the topic of design law, including presentations at the United States Patent & Trademark Office (Washington D.C.), the World Intellectual Property Organization (Geneva, Switzerland), the Korean Patent Office (Daejeon, Korea), the Chinese Patent Office (Beijing, China) and the European Union’s Office of Harmonization of the Internal Markets (Alicante, Spain). Chris is the author and editor-in-chief of the book “Design Rights: Functionality and Scope of Protection,” which was published in September 2017 by Wolters Kluwer N.V.

He is a frequent contributor to CNN and Bloomberg TV on intellectual property law issues, and often is called upon to provide comment to other media outlets, including New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR, PBS TV, CNBC TV, BBC, Reuters, InformationWeek, Fast Company, ComputerWorld, PCWorld, Washington Post, L.A. Times, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, Fortune, and FoxBusiness TV. Away from the law, Chris is a studied jazz musician playing upright bass on the Chicago jazz circuit.