The Institute for Intellectual Property and Information Law (IPIL) and the Moot Court team operation of the Blakely Advocacy Institute (“Blakely”) provide this page to Law Center students to assist with information about moot court competitions in intellectual property.
The two primary IP moot courts in which Law Center students participate are listed below. These two moot courts are competitions regularly attended by Blakely with competition teams deriving from its general moot court team.
• Giles Rich Moot Court (GRMC) page
• Saul Lefkowitz Moot Court (SLMC) Competition page
A Brief Overview of the Giles Rich Moot Court (GRMC)
The GRMC is styled as an intellectual property law moot court, but its subject matter is dominated by patent law.
The structure and rules of the GRMC allow for selection of four students to create two teams. Working in pairs, they write briefs for both sides of the issue. Selection of a fifth, alternate participant, does not make sense because the persons who argue the problem must have authored the brief, and only two team members may author the briefs. If a GRMC participant cannot argue, the other team member argues both sides. Additionally, a school may enter two teams into a regional competition only under certain conditions relating to the structure of the regional competition. There is typically a regional competition in Houston, and traditionally entering a second team has not been a problem in the Houston region. Finally, a school may be represented in only one region.
The general schedule each year for the GRMC competition is: (i) the problem posts in October; (ii) briefs are due the first Monday in February; and (ii) regional competitions for the oral argument phase are the second weekend of Spring break in mid‑March.
Some history for past ways in which IP moot court participation was administered
This page gives some history about how IP moot court participation has been managed differently up through 2012.
Last modified on February 8, 2012, by Greg R. Vetter