Seattle Patent Law Community Mourns the Passing of Lee Johnson

Friends, family, and local patent practitioners met yesterday to mourn the loss of Lee Johnson, a talented engineer and patent lawyer who spent over 35 years as named partner of one of Seattle's oldest IP boutiques, Christensen O'Connor Johnson Kindness (commonly referred to by the acronym COJK). Lee was an excellent lawyer and friend. Funeral services were held in Seattle's historic Plymouth Congregational Church and it was standing room only.

I had the pleasure of working with Lee for seven years at COJK and I try to emulate his dedication to this profession and his focus on client service. Lee was the ideal mentor for a young lawyer, bringing the same dedication and focus to this role as he did his legal practice. He introduced me to Seattle Rotary and led by exemplifying the Rotary motto of "service of above self." At age 65, he left us too soon after struggling with cancer for the last year.


Lee was born October 4, 1942 in Ames, Iowa and was raised in the small idyllic farming community of Avoca, Iowa. He graduated from Iowa State University in 1964 with a degree in chemical engineering and was accepted into the patent training program at The DuPont Company in Washington D.C. where he worked during the day and studied law in the evening at Georgetown University. In 1971, after working briefly for a law firm in Dallas, Lee accepted a job in Seattle with the small IP boutique Christensen & Sanborn. It was here that Lee joined Bruce O'Connor, a fellow Georgetown graduate. O'Connor and Johnson were later joined by Gary Kindness, and partnership of COJK was formed in 1976.

Over the years, COJK represented some of the Northwest's finest companies, including Microsoft, Boeing, Amazon, Nintendo, and Weyerhaeuser. Lee was instrumental in firm leadership, helping to grow the firm from 4 lawyers in the 1970s to over 50 attorneys in 2001-2, most with engineering or technical degrees.

Lee was an avid boater. He and partner Gary Kindness owned a 46 foot Grand Banks cruiser that they kept in the San Juan Islands. Named by combining their two last names Johnson and Kindness, "the Jokin" was an omnipresent guiding vessel for the annual COJK boat trip in the San Juans. The boat was always spotless too. Lee was aboard the Jokin, enjoying a vacation with his family in Desolation Sound just weeks ago.

Lee will be missed but not forgotten. He's left an important mark on my professional career, and lawyers will do well always if they only try and be more like Lee Johnson.