Steptoe & Johnson snags former ITC judge

{mosads}The firm’s chairman, Roger Warin, on Tuesday praised the administrative law veteran’s record and expertise. During Rogers’s five-year stint at the agency, patent disputes dominated his casework.

“[Rogers] will give clients insight into how they can best present their case before the ITC,” which is an independent agency that presides over U.S. trade laws concerning unfair competition and trade secrets, Warin said in a statement.

Steptoe reported earning more than $4.7 million in federal lobbying fees last year.

The ITC’s administrative judges make decisions under section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930, which aims to prevent unfair competition practices of imported goods, including patent infringement.

Steptoe’s intellectual property practice has been “involved in the highly publicized ‘smartphone wars,’” it says, adding that it “is consistently recognized as one of the most active before the ITC.”

Before his appointment to the ITC, Rogers held several positions in both the public and private law sectors.

For the last two decades, however, he has served as a federal administrative law judge, working in regional California offices for various agencies and at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in Washington.