In a bundle of sad news, it appears that late last week, patent attorney Jackie Duke of Houston shot and killed patent agent Michael Hartmann before killing himself. Hartmann was an in-house counsel at Cooper Cameron and head of the patents department. Duke also worked as a consultant for the Cameron patent department. The shooting occurred at Cooper Cameron headquarters in Texas.
Our thoughts and prayers go out to their families, friends, and co-workers.





Hi Mr.Crouch,
I was just wondering whether you had more information about this tragic event. Google points to your blog as the only relevant reporting source. Was there a reason why this Patent Attorney shot a Patent Agent? Was it work-related? Why did such an event occur? This is very sad, and also at the same time very shocking. Thanks for all your time.
Posted by: Law Student | May 09, 2005 at 08:59 PM
Hi, Law Student.
There was a story on this on law.com several days ago, so it is not updated with recent news, but it has more information for you.
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1115283909797
Iris
Posted by: Iris Cox | May 10, 2005 at 01:35 AM