HOUSTON, THE NATION’S FOURTH LARGEST CITY, STANDS TODAY AS A LEADING INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR CREATIVITY in computer technology, biomedical technology, petrochemical technology and space technology.
At the legal epicenter of Houston’s contributions to the technologies of tomorrow stands the Institute for Intellectual Property & Information Law (“IPIL”) at the University of Houston Law Center.
IPIL is recognized throughout the world for the strength of its faculty, scholarship, curriculum, and students. Its contributions to the study of law have earned both respect and an enduring reputation for excellence.
Leading·Legal·Learning—in patent, copyright, trademark, trade secret and information law. That’s what we do at the UH Law Center. Come join us.
IPIL/HOUSTON
PRESENTS
SPONSORED BY
Baker Botts L.L.P.
Should the Law Care
Why Intellectual Property Rights
Have Been Asserted?
Jeanne Fromer
Professor of Law
New York University School of Law
Monday, March 2, 2015
The Coronado Club
919 Milam Street
Houston, Texas
Reception 5:30 p.m.
Lecture 6:15 p.m.
One Hour of CLE Credit
Kindly RSVP to ipil@uh.edu
For more information, call 713.743.2180
2014
Julie E. Cohen, Georgetown University
Post-Industrial Property
2013
David McGowan, University of San Diego School of Law
The Unfallen Sky: Assessing the Relative Effectiveness of Legal and Market Adaptations to Technological Change
2012
R. Anthony Reese, University of California-Irvine, School of Law
What Does Copyright Law Owe the Future?
2011
Paul Goldstein, Stanford Law School
Copyright on a Clean Slate
2010
Douglas Lichtman, UCLA School of Law
Pricing Patents: The RAND Commitment
2009
William O. Hennessey, University of New Hampshire School of Law
Thirty Years (and More) of IP in China: A Personal Reflection
2008
Robert Merges, University of California Berkeley School of Law
The Concept of Property in the Digital Age
2007
Joel Reidenberg, Fordham University School of Law
The Rule of Intellectual Property Law in the Internet Economy
2006
Hon. Arthur J. Gajarsa, United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Ret.)
Patents in a Changing Economy
2005
F. Scott Kieff, Washington University in St. Louis School of Law
Theory & Practice in Commercializing Innovation
2004
Jane Ginsburg, Columbia University School of Law
The Right to Claim Authorship
Professor Jeanne Fromer teaches in the areas of intellectual property and contracts. She specializes in intellectual property and information law, with particular emphasis on unified theories of copyright and patent law.
Before coming to NYU, Professor Fromer served as a law clerk to Justice David H. Souter of the U.S. Supreme Court and to Judge Robert D. Sack of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. She also worked at Hale and Dorr LLP (now WilmerHale) in the area of intellectual property. In addition, she was an Alexander Fellow with the New York University School of Law and a Resident Fellow with Yale Law School’s Information Society Project. Fromer has served as a visiting professor at Harvard Law School and taught at Fordham Law School.
Professor Fromer received her J.D., magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School, serving as Articles and Commentaries Editor of the Harvard Law Review and as Editor of the Harvard Journal of Law and Technology. She earned her B.A., summa cum laude, in Computer Science from Barnard College, Columbia University. She also received an S.M. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for research work in artificial intelligence and computational linguistics and worked at AT&T (Bell) Laboratories in those same areas.
Representative publications include: An Information Theory of Copyright Law, 64 Emory L.J. 71 (2014); The Audience in Intellectual Property Infringement, 112 Mich. L. Rev. 1251 (2014) (with Mark Lemley); Expressive Incentives in Intellectual Property, 98 Va. L. Rev. 1745 (2012); Patentography, 85 NYU L. Rev. 1444 (2010); and A Psychology of Intellectual Property, 104 Nw. U. L. Rev. 1441 (2010).
Should the Law Care Why Intellectual Property Rights Have Been Asserted?
The American legal system has standard justification stories for our intellectual property systems. Copyright law exists to stimulate the creation and dissemination of creative and artistic works valued by society. Patent law does the same for scientific and technological inventions. These laws offer to creators time-limited exclusive rights to foster these valuable creations without imposing too much cost on society’s use of these creations. The intellectual property laws do so by affording rightsholders an opportunity to vindicate certain interests in their covered works—that are directly related to these laws’ purpose—vis-à-vis third parties. More and more, however, there are reports of copyright, patent, and other intellectual property owners asserting their rights against others for reasons seemingly unrelated to the justifications of the intellectual property rights themselves. For example, there are copyright infringement suits that appear to be brought to protect against grey markets, to vindicate privacy interests, or even to protest American immigration policy. And there are patent infringement suits brought by some nonpracticing entities that appear to be motivated only by extracting settlements, not by the aim of creating or disseminating innovation. Should the law care when rightsholders’ intentions do not fit the justifications for the legal system? Drawing from the case law, I will set out how these intentions sometimes can influence case outcomes. Moreover, I will assess whether misuse, remedies, or other doctrines ought to come into play to size up and restrict rightsholders with ill-fitting intentions.
The Spring Lectures
A Service and Tribute to
Houston’s Distinguished
Intellectual Property Bar
THE INSTITUTE FOR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY & INFORMATION LAW at the University of Houston Law Center acknowledges the generosity of the following sponsors and supporters:
| Adolph Locklar Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP Andrews Kurth LLP Arnold, Knobloch & Saunders, L.L.P. Baker Botts L.L.P. Baker Hughes Incorporated BMC Software Boulware & Valoir Bracewell & Giuliani LLP Conley Rose, P.C. Data Foundry Colocation Exxon Mobil Corporation Giganews Usenet Golden Frog Internet Technology Greenberg Traurig, LLP Heim, Payne & Chorush, L.L.P. Katz Family Foundation Fund Lexicon Pharmaceuticals |
Locke Lord LLP Mayer Brown LLP Nielsen IP Law LLC Norton Rose Fulbright Novak Druce Connolly Bove + Quigg LLP Osha Liang LLP Porter Hedges LLP Shell Oil Company Shook, Hardy & Bacon LLP Susman Godfrey LLP Sutton McAughan Deaver PLLC Thompson & Knight LLP Total Petrochemicals & Refining USA, Inc. Univation Technologies Vinson & Elkins LLP Wong, Cabello, Lutsch, Rutherford & Brucculeri, L.L.P. |
Meg Boulware • Ed Fein • Sarah Harris • Craig Joyce • Ronald and Madelyn Katz
Steve Koch • Irene Kosturakis • Paul Krieger • Bill LaFuze • Raul Montes
Peter Strand • Bill Walker • Russell Wong
Accommodations on the basis of disability are available
by calling IPIL at 713.743.2180 by February 26, 2015.
The University of Houston is a Carnegie-designated Tier One public
research university and an EEO/AA institution.
University of Houston Law Center
Institute for Intellectual Property & Information Law
100 Law Center -
Houston, Texas 77204-6060
www.law.uh.edu/ipil
