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Intellectual Property Institute
University of Richmond School of Law
28 Westhampton Way
Richmond, Virginia 23173
Phone: (804) 287-6398
E-mail: ipi@richmond.edu
IP Institute Recent News
Fall 2012
- On October 5, 2012, renowned composer Philip Glass spoke at the law school to a standing-room-only crowd, sharing his thoughts about the role of copyright law in the creative process and the future of the music industry. The IP Institute would like to thank the Student IP Law Association and the Modlin Center for helping arrange the event.
- On September 21-22, the IP Institute co-hosted an international conference on Global Intellectual Property Enforcement in Washington, DC. It featured speakers from five continents, including judges, government officials, and in-house counsel from Microsoft, Viacom, Pfizer, Costco, and other companies. And the closing act was our Sixth Annual Evil Twin Debate.
- On November 15, Professor Gibson was interviewed on NBC12 about the Federal Trade Commission’s inquiry into popular websites that allegedly collect private information from children. On October 11, he moderated a panel on Technology and National Security, featuring former CIA director Michael Hayden, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, and former U.S. Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra, at the National Military Family Association annual luncheon.
- On November 13, Professor Cotropia presented Predictability as a Basis for Obviousness at the Fiftieth Annual Conference on Intellectual Property Law, hosted by the Center for American and International Law. Later that month he traveled to Cuba as part of an AIPLA delegation.
- In early November, Professor Osenga posted a podcast discussing Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, a Supreme Court case on the cross-border implications of copyright’s first sale doctrine. She also presented her paper Communicating Communications Policy at the Telecommunications Policy Research Conference.
- Professor Cotropia’s article Do Applicant Patent Citations Matter? Implications for the Presumption of Validity (co-authored with Mark Lemley and Bhaven Sampat) will appear in the peer-reviewed, multi-disciplinary journal Research Policy. He also presented the article at the Seventh Annual Empirical Legal Scholars conference at Stanford Law School.
- Professor Gibson’s article Vertical Boilerplate will appear in the Washington & Lee Law Review.
- Professor Osenga published What Do America’s First Patents Have to Do With Today’s? in the Florida Law Review Online Forum, and her article Information May Want to Be Free, but Information Products Do Not will be republished in Critical Concepts in Intellectual Property Law.
- In June 2012, Professor Cotropia filed a brief pro bono on behalf of Demand Progress as an interested non-party in United States v. Dotcom, the federal government’s criminal prosecution of Megaupload and its founder Kim Dotcom for alleged copyright infringement and related offenses.
- In May 2012, Professor Osenga presented The Rhetoric of Claim Construction at PatCon2 at Boston College Law School, and in June she served as a fellow at the Houston IPIL Annual Conference, Pondering Patents: First Principles and Fresh Possibilities. She also spoke on the post-grant provisions of the America Invents Act at the Southeastern Association of Law Schools Annual Meeting in July and presented Communicating Communications Policy at the annual Intellectual Property Scholars Conference in August.
- IPI Research Fellow Cecil Quillen published a response essay, Rethinking Federal Circuit Jurisdiction, in Ipsa Loquitur, the online companion to the Georgetown Law Journal. He and Professor Cotropia also provided statistics for the 2012 edition of the Intellectual Property Owners Association’s IP Record.
- In May 2012, Professor Gibson presented Vertical Boilerplate at the Richmond Law Faculty Colloquy.
- The IP Institute awarded its IP Certificate to ten graduating students at the 2012 graduation ceremony, six of whom earned the Certificate with distinction. In addition, several students received IP awards at graduation. Christopher Mackenzie, John Morrisett, and Lauren Palmer won the ABA/BNA Award for Excellence for their “superior academic performance in the field of intellectual property, and Scott Bergeson won the Greater Richmond Intellectual Property Association Award for his “enduring contribution to the study of intellectual property law.”
- Professor Cotropia published Conflicts of Interest Issues in Patent Litigation in the 2012 edition of the PLI’s IP Enforcement and Litigation: Civil and Criminal Update.
- The IP Institute fielded two moot court teams in the spring 2012 semester. Erin Barclay and Daniel Lee represented Richmond Law at the International Trademark Association’s annual Saul Lefkowitz moot court competition in New York, and John Morrissett and Rizwan Mujeebuddin traveled to Houston to compete in the American IP Law Association’s annual Giles Sutherland Rich patent moot court competition.
- The IP Institute is sorry to share some terrible news: the passing of John Carroll, the founder and teacher of our IP and Transactional Law Clinic. Students and friends are sharing their thoughts on a special Facebook page. The IP Institute will never be the same without Professor Carroll.
- In February 2012, Professor Cotropia presented Patent Conflicts of Interest at the University of Texas School of Law’s Thirteenth Annual Intellectual Property Symposium and Learning Theory and the Federal Circuit at the American University Law Review Federal Circuit Symposium. In March, he presented Patent Conflicts of Interest at the Practicing Law Institute.