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138 HOUSTON LAW REVIEW

The professor could put together an IP program however he thought best. But
he would get no support from the Dean, when it was put to the faculty for a vote, if the
plan became controversial. The plan immediately became controversial, and the professor
got no decanal support in the end.

Convinced that the program could not succeed without a patent professor but
aware that the faculty was unlikely to hire one, the copyright professor set out to find a
candidate who could avoid the perils of Scylla and Charybdis. Shortly, the ideal candidate
emerged: a former managing partner of Houston’s world-class “boutique” IP firm, Arnold,
White & Durkee, an egghead practitioner who published constantly, and a top-level
lawyer who had announced widely his intention to retire at age 50 to become either a
concert pianist (an ambition for which he was amply qualified) or a law professor.

His name was Paul Janicke. He was then a year short of 50. And the copyright
professor thought he deserved not to become yet another starving musician.

The plan was simple. Janicke would be hired as Staff Director of the proposed
IP program. The copyright professor would be Faculty Director. The latter would assure
that, beyond directing the program’s otherwise non-existent staff, Janicke would have
ample time to teach and write about patent law and other areas of interest to him.

Viewing the proposal as a Trojan horse that would later open to disclose a
Janicke candidacy for tenure-track status, more than a few faculty members expressed
serious reservations. In an example of Law Center collegiality at its best, however, the
plan’s principal opponent, Richard Alderman, asked to come to the copyright professor’s
office and offer him the opportunity to persuade the likely dissenters of the plan’s merit.
Alderman came and listened—but was not persuaded.

The plan then went forward for faculty decision. Specifically, Joyce proposed
that the faculty:

(1) Approve the concept of formally identifying IP as a specialty field for UHLC;
(2) Give “go ahead” for beginning the research, etc., needed to compile
information for a proposal to forward to the state’s Coordinating Board
regarding an LL.M. in IP; and
(3) Approve, on a contract basis, someone to be appointed as Co-Director of the
IPP [Intellectual Property Program].
Furthermore, the professor proposed that, if the program were not successful and self-
sufficient within two to three years, it should terminate automatically. Faculty Meeting
Minutes (Oct. 3, 1991) (on file with Houston Law Review).

At the faculty meeting itself, the advocacy on both sides was strong, and the
balloting, close. The plan prevailed initially on a vote of 17–16, but it then was approved
unanimously, for the record, when the most determined doubter, Richard Alderman,
graciously so moved and the faculty duly concurred.

16. For a summary of HLPI’s non-HLR related accomplishments, see Joyce &
Hoffman, Centered, supra, at 83–84.

17. For one such development at least tangentially related to HLR, spearheaded for
IPIL by Janicke, see id. at 81 (“The LL.M. Program”).

18. During Decade 4, for example, the Review published the Inaugural Katz-Kiley
Lecture. See John B. Pegram, Should the U.S. Court of International Trade Be Given Patent
Jurisdiction Concurrent with That of the District Courts?, 32 HOUS. L. REV. 67 (1995); Nancy J.
Linck, Kevin T. Kramer & David J. Ball, Jr., A New Patent Examination System of the New
Millennium, 35 HOUS. L. REV. 305 (1998).

19. See Legal Issues in the Information Revolution, 32 HOUS. L. REV. 303 (1995);
Licensing in the Digital Age, 36 HOUS. L. REV. 1 (1999).

20. For a listing of all annual IPIL symposia issues to date, see the Decade 5 essay.
21. For a listing of all Spring Lecture articles to date, see the Decade 5 essay.
22. All references during the remainder of these essays to any of the programs just
named will carry the moniker “IPIL.”
23. Vitally importantly to Houston Law Review, since 1999 the following distinguished
faculty have been added to the IPIL roster: Greg Vetter (2002) (among the nation’s leading