Erik Maurer focuses his practice on intellectual property litigation and counseling. He represents clients in matters involving utility patent, design patent, trade secret, trademark, trade dress, unfair competition, antitrust, and copyright issues, from both plaintiffs’ and defendants’ perspectives. In every instance, Erik strives to understand clients’ goals and then to efficiently achieve those goals using appropriate advocacy and dispute resolution skills reinforced by modern technological resources. With this approach Erik has successfully handled temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction hearings; secured and executed seizure orders; examined witnesses, presented evidence, and served as advocate before judge, jury, and arbitrator; conducted complex discovery; drafted winning motions through every phase of litigation; and briefed successful appellate and amicus curiae submissions.
Mr. Maurer enjoys teaching and serves as an adjunct professor at Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago and at the Georgetown University Law Center in DC teaching Patent Trial Practice. Mr. Maurer also teaches Persuasive Strategy and Practice in the High Technology Courtroom at Georgetown, a course he wrote based on experiences simplifying complex patent issues for Markman hearings and trial.
Mr. Maurer is also a contributing author to the Patent Trial Advocacy Casebook, Second Edition published by the American Bar Association.
Erik graduated Order of the Coif and earned his Juris Doctor, cum laude, from Northwestern University School of Law. He was an associate editor of Northwestern’s Law Review, and published his article, "An Economic Justification for a Broad Interpretation of Patentable Subject Matter" in the Law Review’s Spring 2001 volume. Prior to law school, Erik worked in the environmental engineering field and in policy development at the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Erik earned a Bachelors of Science in Biology from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in 1996.
Mr. Maurer was again named an "Illinois Super Lawyers Rising Star" in the field of Intellectual Property Litigation in the February 2011 edition of Chicago Magazine. Super Lawyers Rising Stars names the state's top 2% of up-and-coming attorneys under the age of 40 based on a comprehensive research process to find evidence of peer recognition and professional achievement.
Erik Maurer practices in the Chicago office of Banner & Witcoff, Ltd.
