IP and IT Conferences

The George Washington University Law School
Intellectual Property Law Program

Patentable Subject Matter: 35 USC § 101

Keynote Address (9:30am)
The Honorable Paul R. Michel
Former Chief Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit

First Panel (10am-11:15am)
Bilski’s Aftermath: Software, Business Methods and Abstract Ideas
Robert W. Bahr, Senior Patent Attorney, Office of the Deputy Commissioner for Patent Examination Policy, USPTO (invited)
John Duffy, Professor, George Washington University Law School
David Olson, Assistant Professor, Boston College Law School
Richard Wilder, Associate General Counsel, Microsoft

Second Panel (11:30am – 12:45pm)
Natural Laws and Phenomena in the Life Sciences: Prometheus & Myriad
F. Scott Kieff, Professor, George Washington University Law School
Dan Ravicher, Lecturer of Law, Cardozo School of Law; Executive Director, Public Patent Foundation
Hans Sauer, Associate General Counsel, Biotechnology Industry Organization
John M. Whealan, Associate Dean of IP, George Washington University Law School

Monday, September 20, 2010
9:30 a.m. – 12:45 p.m.

The George Washington University Law School
Jacob Burns Moot Courtroom*
Burns Hall 1st Floor
716 20th Street NW
*Overflow Room: LL 101

The event is free and open to the public. A casual lunch will follow. Please RSVP by September 15th to iplaw@law.gwu.edu.

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2010 Wisconsin Law Review Symposium: Intergenerational Equity and Intellectual Property

Nov. 12-13, 2010 at the UW Law School

Hosted by: Shubha Ghosh, Professor of Law, Honorary Fellow and Associate Director of INSITE at the University of Wisconsin, and Deven Desai, Associate Professor of Law at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and Visiting Fellow at Princeton University (2010). Co-hosted by Symposium Editors Chase Horne and Greg Lockwood and the Wisconsin Law Review Staff.

Sponsored by: The University of Wisconsin Law School, the Institute for Legal Studies, the Initiative for Studies in Transformational Entrepreneurship (INSITE) at the UW Business School, and the Wisconsin Law Review, with substantial support from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.

Timeline: Friday, Nov. 12 from 1:00 to about 6:30 pm; Saturday, Nov. 13, from 9:00 am to about 3:00 pm.

Location: UW Law School. Friday in Godfrey & Kahn Lecture Hall (Room 2260, at north end of atrium); Saturday in Lubar Commons (7200).

Register by Nov. 1st: This event is free and open to the UW faculty, students and staff and to the legal community. Please register by November 1st, providing your name and institutional affiliation to pshollen@wisc.edu. Same-day registration will be allowed based on space availability. There is no fee.

Link

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Save the date:

The 2011 Junior Scholars in Intellectual Property Workshop will be held on April 15-16, 2011 at Michigan State University in East Lansing, MI.

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The John Marshall Law School
Review of Intellectual Property Law

“BIOTECHNOLOGY AND HEALTH-RELATED ISSUES IN IP LAW”

The John Marshall Review of Intellectual Property Law is accepting scholarly papers related to “Biotechnology and Health-Related Issues in IP Law” for their spring 2011 issue. Professionals and scholars are invited to submit a working paper or idea for consideration. Published individuals may also be invited to present their works at the RIPL symposium in April.

SUBMISSIONS/FURTHER INFORMATION:

For further details please see:

http://www.jmls.edu/events/RIPL-call-for-papers-2011.shtml

Proposals are due by September 10, 2010.

For questions regarding submissions, contact:

CONTACT: Wasim K. Bleibel – Lead Articles Editor
Email: wbleibe@law.jmls.edu

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The faculty of Chicago-Kent’s Program in Intellectual Property Law invites you to attend the Inaugural Chicago-Kent Supreme Court IP Review on September 30, 2010.

Location:

IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law
565 West Adams Street
Chicago, Illinois 60661

Conference: 1 to 5 p.m.
Reception: 5 to 6 p.m.

Please join us to:

Review intellectual property cases decided in the 2009 Term: American Needle, Inc. v. NFL, Bilski v. Kappos, and Reed Elsevier, Inc. v. Muchnick

Review cases on the docket for the 2010 Term,

Discuss cert petitions to watch

Information: http://ipconference.kentlaw.edu/

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The Ethical Ramifications of Therasense

Presented by

The Catholic University of America
Columbus School of Law

At the National Press Club

September 27, 2010
5:00 pm – 6:30 pm

A patent is an exclusive right conferred by the United States government to promote the progress of science and the useful arts. When that right is procured through fraud, the patent may be held unenforceable. An applicant has a duty to disclose to the Patent Office “all information known to be material to patentability,” per 37 CFR 1.56 (“Rule 56”). Intentional failure to do so can result in the patent being held unenforceable for inequitable conduct. What does this mean? Must parties disclose hundreds of prior art references or risk a finding of inequitable conduct rendering the patent unenforceable? What does it mean to intentionally fail to disclose all material information? Is the defense of inequitable conduct being abused in litigation, as parties seek to render unenforceable the patent they are accused of infringing?

The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit recently decided that the law governing a finding of inequitable conduct warranted en banc consideration, and on November 9, 2010, the full court will hear Therasense, Inc. v. Becton, Dickinson & Co. Please join us on September 27, 2010 for a discussion anticipating the ethical ramifications of this important case. We look forward to a lively discussion of the use of the inequitable conduct defense at the trial court level, the ethical considerations of the applicant’s duty of disclosure, what materiality means, how intent and materiality factor into the unenforceable determination and whether the standards for materiality and intent in other federal agency contexts or at common law shed light on the appropriate standards to be applied in the patent context.

Moderators:

Professor Megan LaBelle, Catholic University

Professor Elizabeth Winston, Catholic University

Panelists:

Professor Lisa Dolak, Syracuse University College of Law

James J. Kulbaski, Oblon Spivak McClelland Maier and Neustadt

C. Edward Polk, Foley & Lardner LLP

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15 Years of TRIPS Implementation

2010 International Law Weekend
Fordham University School of Law, New York
Friday, October 22
4:45 – 6:15 p.m.

On January 1, 1995, the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights entered into effect. This timely panel examines the past implementation of this important treaty and the upcoming challenges confronting the international intellectual property regime.

Chair and Presenter:

Prof. Peter K. Yu, Kern Family Chair in Intellectual Property Law & Director, Intellectual Property Law Center, Drake University Law School

Presenters:

Prof. Margaret Chon, Associate Dean for Research and Centers & Donald & Lynda Horowitz Professor for the Pursuit of Justice, Seattle University School of Law

Sean Flynn, Associate Director, Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property, American University Washington College of Law

Prof. Daniel J. Gervais, Co-Director, Technology & Entertainment Law Program, Vanderbilt University School of Law

Prof. Doris Estelle Long, Chair, Intellectual Property, Information Technology and Privacy Group, John Marshall Law School, Chicago

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The Intellectual Property Institute’s fourth annual Evil Twin Debate will take place at noon on Friday, November 5, 2010, in the moot court room at the University of Richmond School of Law. It will feature Jonathan Band of policybandwidth.com and James Grimmelmann of New York Law School. They will debate the topic The Google Books Settlement: Standing Copyright on Its Head? The debate is open to the public and will provide one hour of Virginia CLE credit. A Q&A and reception will follow.

The Evil Twin Debate series is founded on the notion that experts are often at loggerheads on important issues of IP policy, yet remain friendly on a personal level. The series therefore brings together pairs of scholars who disagree on an important IP topic, but who can air their disagreements in a friendly exchange—serious in substance but lighthearted in tone. For more information and video of past debates, please visit
http://law.richmond.edu/about/centers/ipi/events/debate.html

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Second Annual ISHTIP Workshop
International Society for the History and Theory of Intellectual Property
Geographies of Intellectual Property
American University, Washington, D.C.
24-25 September 2010

Program and website: http://www.ishtip.org/?p=106

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Patent Scope Revisited:
Merges and Nelson’s On the Complex Economics of Patent Scope, 20 Years After
September 23-24, 2010
Bloomington, IN

Conference Summary:

In their classic 1990 article, Merges and Nelson transformed the debate over the economic foundations of patent law. At the time, the bulk of the economics literature (with the notable exception of Ed Kitch’s “Prospect Theory” paper) had focused on issues such as patent duration. Merges and Nelson pointed out that the determinations of greatest everyday significance to the patent system – determinations of patent scope – had attracted the least economic analysis.

Taking Kitch’s work as their model, Merges and Nelson crafted their own new answers to the question of how patent scope decisions affect technological development. They concluded that the law should strive to preserve competition for improvements, even at the expense of eroding incentives for pioneer firms to some extent. They also concluded that technical advance proceeded differently in different industries, and that patent scope decisions should reflect that fact. The resulting work has joined Kitch’s as a staple in the scholarly literature on patent law.

The landscape of patent law has changed dramatically since 1990. Crucial cases on the processes of claim interpretation, the shape of the doctrine of equivalents, and the extent of the written description requirement, to name only a few, were all handed down after 1990. In addition, the scholarly literature on patent law has grown exponentially. Even basic questions of what patent “scope” encompasses are matters of current scholarly debate.

At this conference, we will consider what has been learned about these topics since the publication of “Patent Scope,” and how the work of current scholars, lawyers and judges will inform future debates in this area.

Date: September 23-24, 2010
Location: Indiana University Maurer School of Law, Bloomington, Indiana
Cost: There is no cost to attend.
CLE Credit: We anticipate applying for at least 9-10 credits of Indiana CLE.
To Register: Visit the conference website to register for the conference and for updated speaker lists and schedules.

For more information, contact:
Professor Mark Janis
812.855.1205
mdjanis@indiana.edu

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