Barry Irwin

Professional Accolades & Leadership Roles

Barry was named to the 2025 Best Lawyers in America List in 3 areas: Copyright Law Litigation, Intellectual Property Litigation, and Patent and Trademark Law.  In 2022, Barry was designated Lawyer of the Year by Best Lawyers in two separate areas: Patent Litigation and Copyright Law (each award given to a single lawyer in a community). In 2018, Barry was selected by Thomson Reuters as one of the Top 100 lawyers in Illinois. And, 2024 marked 20 years he has been named a Leading Lawyer and a Super Lawyer. He also received Martindale Hubbell’s highest ratings (AV, AV+ and AV Preeminent) in his first years of eligibility and each year thereafter.

In 2015, Barry received the rare distinction of being named a Fellow of the Litigation Counsel of America (LCA), and in 2022 became a Senior Fellow. LCA is an invitation-only honorary trial lawyer society composed of less than one-half of one percent of American lawyers. LCA Fellows are selected based on their legal excellence and accomplishments in litigation and superior ethical reputations. Barry has also been named an IP Star by Managing IP.

In 2016, Chicago-based Lawyers for the Creative Arts, a not-for-profit organization that provides free and low-cost legal services to members of the various Illinois arts communities, awarded him with its Distinguished Service to the Arts award. He has been a supervising attorney for numerous pro bono matters involving a broad range of issues and hundreds of attorney hours annually, including matters involving: the confinement conditions at a juvenile detention facility; employment discrimination; a trial of an aggravated assault charge resulting in acquittal; serving as guardian ad litem; and dozens of entertainment law matters.

For approximately 15 years, three times a year, Barry also taught trial advocacy to Kirkland & Ellis associates, participating in Kirkland’s multiday, immersive mock trial programs.

Notable Cases & Results

Barry is a first-chair litigation attorney handling high-stakes patent, copyright, trademark, trade secret, restrictive covenant, unfair competition, false advertising, and antitrust matters. Some of those matters include:

• a monumental win for his client, LKQ, and a change to design patent law in a rare en banc Federal Circuit appeal where ten Federal Circuit judges ultimately concurred with LKQ’s arguments that the Court’s long-standing approach to evaluating the obviousness of design patents was improper, resulting in the previous panel opinion being vacated and the case being remanded for further proceedings consistent with the en banc panel’s ruling (LKQ v. GM);
• two of the largest cases in the history of the International Trade Commission (ITC), which included obtaining the first ever 100-day expedited proceedings (on the domestic industry issue) and, after largely adverse administrative law judge determinations, the full ITC agreeing with Irwin IP’s client, LKQ, on the domestic industry issue and LKQ prevailing on all 41 design patents asserted by Hyundai and Kia;
• a multi-patent defensive matter for a medical product’s company where Irwin IP defeated a Fortune 50 company’s effort to enjoin sales of its client’s medical product for allegedly infringing patents that had survived numerous prior invalidity challenges and that were the foundation for a $1 billion/year market;
• two related multi-patent, false advertising and unfair competition defenses for a disruptive start-up against an industry-leading Fortune 500 company, wherein Irwin IP won summary judgment on the patent claims, and the court announcing its intention to also grant summary judgment on the non-patent claims;
• a patent matter for an industrial product supplier against its main competitor where Irwin IP prevailed on summary judgment and obtained an award of attorney fees;
• an offensive patent infringement action, winning a $7.3 million jury verdict, and obtaining a permanent injunction protecting a $100-million-per-year product line;
• a $500 million, multi-patent infringement defense, winning a complete defense jury verdict;
• an extensive, expedited evidentiary hearing, wherein Irwin IP obtained a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction precluding Customs and Border Protection (“CBP”) from imposing a bonding requirement against an importer that would have caused the importer to cease operations and cost hundreds of employees their jobs;
• an offensive matter against CBP wherein Irwin IP obtained a rare order requiring CBP to immediately move forward with seizure actions it had been intentionally delaying;
• four different offensive trade secret/restrictive covenant matters, obtaining preliminary injunctions after multi-day evidentiary hearings, including a case of first impression where the court precluded a former sales representative from soliciting “high-volume” customers;
• a trade secret defensive matter, obtaining summary judgment that 48 different allegedly misappropriated secrets were in the public domain, or not used by his client;
• an offensive trademark infringement matter, obtaining a preliminary injunction after an evidentiary hearing;
• an offensive trade dress infringement matter, obtaining summary judgment of trade dress infringement, and summary judgment on each of the defendants’ Walker-Process antitrust, unfair competition, interference with contract and trade libel counterclaims;
• an offensive breach of fiduciary duty action, obtaining over $16 million of settlements;
• numerous expedited intellectual property litigation matters for industry leading gaming companies wherein preliminary injunctions and consent judgments have been obtained involving a diverse range of technology, including automatic card shufflers, proprietary table games, table game monitoring systems, “virtual reel” technology, “method of play” patents, cashless technology, authentication technology and progressive systems; and
• numerous successful copyright infringement matters for recording artists, photographers and sculptors wherein Irwin IP has enjoining unlawful distribution of infringing works, and recovered its attorney fees.

Court Admissions

Illinois, 1992
U.S. District Court
Northern District of Illinois, 1992
Northern District of Ohio, 1994
6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, 1994
7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, 1994
Central District of Illinois, 1998
District of Delaware, 1998
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Federal Circuit, 1998
Trial Bar, 1999
District of New Jersey, 2000
District of Minnesota, 2001
Northern District of Georgia, 2004
District of Nevada, 2005
Northern District of Indiana, 2005
Southern District of New York, 2007
Northern District of Pennsylvania, 2010
Northern District of California, 2011
Southern District of California, 2013
Central District of California, 2015
Western District of Tennessee, 2015
Western District of Michigan, 2016
U.S. Court of International Trade, 2018

Representative Clients

Action Gaming, Activision TV, AGS, Alcon Laboratories, AMF Bowling, Aruze Gaming, Balance GFX, Covidien, CVS, Ecomed, F.P. Rosback, Fellowes, International Game Technology, Kapsch, LKQ, Massarelli Lawn Ornaments, Mark IV, Motorola, National Steel Car, Nobel Biocare, Oasis Financial, Office Depot, Opternative, Par-Kan, Peripheral Devices, Ranir, Shuffle Master, Smiths Medical, Swagway, Trading Technologies, U.S. Auto Parts, Visa, Walker Digital Table Systems, WorldGate Communications, Wowza Media Systems

Employment History

Kirkland & Ellis LLP, 1995-2014
Named Partner, 2000
Named Equity Partner, 2004
Brinks, Gilson & Lione
Associate, 1992-1995
Oltsch, Knoblock & Hall
Clerk
Jones, Obenchain, Ford, Pankow
Clerk
Pratt & Whitney Government Engine Business
Design and Project Engineer

Bar & Professional Association Involvement

Lawyers for the Creative Arts
Board President
Trial Law Institute
Diversity Law Institute
Intellectual Property Institute

Community Involvement

DIL Corp. – Vice-President, 2000-2015
Notre Dame Club of Chicago – Core Committee & Attorney Networking Committee
Burr Ridge Planning Commission – Vice-Chair
Lawyers for the Creative Arts – President

Pro Bono

Barry has been a supervising attorney for numerous pro bono matters involving a broad range of issues and hundreds of attorney hours annually, including matters involving: the confinement conditions at a juvenile detention facility; employment discrimination; a trial of an aggravated assault charge resulting in acquittal; serving as guardian ad litem; and in dozens of entertainment law matters.