Chicago-Kent and Loyola Intellectual Property Colloquium

Chicago-Kent College of Law and Loyola University Chicago School of Law jointly sponsor and host the Chicago Intellectual Property Colloquium. The Colloquium promotes discussion of a range of issues in intellectual property and Internet law.

Each year, during the Spring academic semester, Chicago-Kent and Loyola invite six nationally renowned intellectual property scholars to Chicago  to present and discuss their current research projects before intellectual property faculty from Chicago-area law schools, prominent intellectual property practitioners, and selected students from Chicago-Kent and Loyola (“Chicago IP Colloquium Fellows“).

These presentations usually take place on every second Tuesday during the Spring semester from 4:00 p.m. to 5:40 p.m., with the location alternating between Chicago-Kent and Loyola.

If you are a student at Chicago-Kent or Loyola who is interested in participating in the Colloquium, please click here.  Student Fellows meet with Colloquium Faculty from Chicago-Kent and Loyola one week before each presentation to discuss the draft paper that the invited scholar will present.  To read more about the Colloquium Faculty from Chicago-Kent and Loyola, please click here.

SPEAKERS FOR THE SPRING 2023
CHICAGO IP COLLOQUIUM

Spring 2023: Speaker Profiles and Papers

January 24, online
Rochelle Dreyfuss, New York University Law School
Paper: Human Rights in a Technological Age: The Right to Participate in Science

Bio: Rochelle C. Dreyfuss is the Pauline Newman Professor of Law Emerita at New York University School of Law, co-Director of NYU’s Engelberg Center on Innovation Law and Policy, and a Research Fellow at the Oxford IP Research Center.  She has taught international intellectual property law, patent law, and civil procedure and, among other things, writes about the impact of international intellectual property agreements on science and culture, see, e.g., A Neofederalist Vision of TRIPS: Building a Resilient International Intellectual Property System (Oxford University Press 2012) (with Graeme Dinwoodie).  Professor Dreyfuss is a member of the American Law Institute and was a co-Reporter of the ALI Project on Intellectual Property: Principles Governing Jurisdiction, Choice of Law, and Judgments in Transnational Disputes. She also served on committees of the National Academies of Sciences dealing with intellectual property law, on a National Institute of Health Advisory Committee on genetics and health,  and advised the FTC on issues at the intersection of intellectual property law and antitrust law.

 

February 7, online
Aman Gebru, University of Houston Law Center
Paper: Communal Authorship

Bio: Professor Gebru’s research focuses on issues at the intersection of intellectual property law, innovation policy, and knowledge governance from both domestic and global perspectives. His recent projects examine how intellectual property laws deal with collectively developed innovation and creativity, such as hackathons, memes, and indigenous (traditional) knowledge. Before joining the University of Houston Law Center, Professor Gebru served as an assistant professor of law at Duquesne University School of Law, a visiting assistant professor at Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University, and a Global Post-Doctoral Fellow at New York University School of Law. He has also taught internationally at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (Canada) and Harmaya University College of Law (Ethiopia). Courses Professor Gebru has taught include contracts, property, and intellectual property law.

 

February 21, online
Deborah Gerhardt, University of North Carolina School of Law
Paper: Sound Marks

Bio: Deborah R. Gerhardt joined the UNC law faculty in 2009 and serves as the Reef C. Ivey II Excellence Fund Term  Professor of Law. She specializes in intellectual property law, with a  particular focus on the intersection of law and creativity. Gerhardt teaches Arts Entrepreneurship, Art Law, Copyright Law, Intellectual Property Law and Trademark Law. In 2018, Gerhardt was awarded UNC’s Distinguished Teaching Award for Post-Baccalaureate Instruction. Gerhardt has written many influential essays and articles on copyright, trademark, entrepreneurship, and art law. Her current scholarship focuses on public memory, nontraditional trademarks, and race and gender equity in intellectual property prosecution.

In 2022, Professor Gerhardt was named as a member of the USPTO’s Trademark Public Advisory Committee. Professor Gerhardt works as counsel at Michael Best & Friedrich serving clients on art law and intellectual property matters. Prior to joining the faculty at UNC, Gerhardt clerked for the Honorable Judge John M. Manos in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio and practiced in the intellectual property section at Jones Day Reavis & Pogue in Cleveland, Ohio. She earned her A.B. degree from Duke University and her J.D. degree cum laude from Case Western Reserve School of Law.

Eric Goldman (headshot)March 21, online
Eric Goldman, Santa Clara University School of Law
Paper: A SAD New Variant of Abusive Intellectual Property Litigation

Bio: Eric Goldman is Associate Dean for Research, Professor of Law, Co-Director of the High Tech Law Institute, and Supervisor of the Privacy Law Certificate, at Santa Clara University School of Law. His research and teaching focuses on Internet law, and he blogs on that topic at the Technology & Marketing Law Blog.  

 

April 4, online
Joseph Fishman, Vanderbilt University Law School
Paper: Earning Trade Secrecy (coauthored with Deepa Varadarajan)

Bio: Joseph Fishman’s research focuses on intellectual property, particularly its relationship to creativity and the creative process. Before joining the Vanderbilt faculty, he served as a Climenko Fellow and Lecturer in Law at Harvard Law School. He earned his A.B. magna cum laude from Harvard College with a joint major in music and religion, his M.Phil. in musicology from the University of Cambridge, and his J.D. cum laude from Harvard Law School. He was a law clerk for Judge Jeffrey R. Howard of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and for Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. He then practiced as an associate at Jenner & Block in the firm’s content, media and entertainment group, where he specialized in litigation involving the music industry, before entering the legal academy.

April 18, online
Elizabeth Rowe, University of Virginia School of Law
Paper: Criminal Scientists and Trade Secrets and Academia

Bio: Professor Elizabeth Rowe is the Henry L. and Grace Doherty Charitable Foundation Professor of Law as well as the Horace W. Goldsmith Research Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law. A nationally recognized expert on Trade Secret Law, Professor Rowe is a prolific scholar who has co- authored or contributed to about a dozen books on intellectual property and has authored dozens of law review articles in leading journals. Several of her articles have been named among the best intellectual property articles of the year. Much of her research addresses the intersection of trade secrets with employment law and technology, as well as the interplay between intellectual property, government policy, and innovation. Her major contributions to the field of trade secrecy include the first and leading casebook in the United States on Trade Secret Law, a Nutshell treatise on trade secrets, and a book on trade secrecy in international transactions. She has been recognized for her exceptional teaching and scholarship with numerous accolades.

She is a former partner at Hale and Dorr, LLP in Boston (now WilmerHale), where she practiced complex commercial litigation including intellectual property and employment litigation. While in practice, she was selected as one of the top five up-and-coming attorneys in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. She received her J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School.

A copy of the paper to be presented will be posted on this website approximately two weeks before each presentation. Papers presented and discussed at past Colloquia are available here.

Contact Information

Questions or comments regarding the Colloquium should be directed to Professor Ed Lee, Chicago-Kent College of Law (elee@kentlaw.iit.edu) or Professor Cynthia Ho, Loyola University Chicago School of Law (intellectual-property@luc.edu).

If you would like to be reminded of the presentation a few days in advance and/or informed of the posting of each paper, please email elee@kentlaw.iit.edu or cho@luc.edu.