Posts Tagged: "John Marshall Law School"

In November, the UIC John Marshall Law School held their 63rd Annual Intellectual Property Conference in Chicago, IL.  The program consisted of four plenary sessions and nine breakout sessions covering artificial intelligence, patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, antitrust, and in-house counsel, as well as IT and privacy developments.  Speakers came from China, Europe, and the Middle East, and represented government, industry, academia, nonprofits, and practice. IPWatchdog’s Editor-In-Chief, Eileen McDermott was there. The program kicked off with a keynote address the Honorable Chief Judge Diane Wood of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.  Titled “Antitrust & IP: Does It Need to Be Retooled?”, Chief Judge Wood spoke about the need for procedural and substantive reform. She began by observing that “[t]he general rule has been for many years — and I think this is entirely correct — that intellectual property is property.” She noted that this approach has been encapsulated in the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission’s Guidelines for the Licensing of Intellectual Property, and that “the fundamentals of antitrust analysis are the same, although the answers may be a little different.” Citing standard essential patents as an example, she said that “there may be some real synergies back and forth between the IP field and the antitrust field that would be well worth exploring,” in particular when considering how antitrust law should approach access issues involving digital platforms, as what is sought is “FRAND-type access to these platforms. ”

A reliable and predictable patent law is more necessary than ever, for technology is a much larger part of our industrial product than ever. The recent Supreme Court attention to patent cases reflects their importance to the nation. The balances are not simple, the fresh balances among creativity, business risk, competition, trade, the creation of new knowledge, the production of industrial capital, and fairness, justice. There is no room in the United States for second best. You and we, lawyers and judges, share this responsibility.

The John Marshall Law School is proud to present its 62nd Annual Intellectual Property Law Conference. This one-day conference covers developments in patent, trade secrets, antitrust, trademarks, copyrights, IP management and in-house counsel practice, entertainment, and information technology and privacy law. Last year, we expanded the scope of our long-standing IP event, moving from principally single-speaker sessions to panels, with…

Scott Kieff: “My biggest take from today’s sessions, was to hear from Don Dunner and Judge Newman and others about that great ideas that we could all share in to bring increased economic growth, increased innovation, increased opportunity for the market, for consumers and for manufacturing by returning to an approach to the IP Antitrust interface that is politically diverse, that both President’s Carter and Reagan embraced. That kind of pivoting could really help the system and it could be done by getting professionals within the community to just talk together in a different way. I know that sounds small because it’s just talking, and talking in a different way. But sometimes those little things can have big payoffs.”

Mr. Donald Dunner, a partner in Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner, LLP in Washington, D.C. has accepted JMLS’ offer to chair the Advisory Board of the School’s Center for Intellectual Property, Information and Privacy Law. In accepting the position of Chair of the Advisory Board Dunner stated, “John Marshall is one of the preeminent centers of legal education in the IP field. I look forward to assisting it in that role.”