Professor Mark Rosen appeared on the television show Chicago Tonight last night to discuss the constitutionality of Illinois’ new pension reform bill. Rosen was joined by Ann Lousin, a professor at the John Marshall Law School, and Malcolm Kamin, an attorney.
Click here to watch the video on Chicago Tonight’s website.
Earlier today, Professor Bernadette Atuahene was a guest on WBEZ Radio’s “Worldview” program for a discussion of Nelson Mandela and his influence on the issue of land reform in South Africa. Professor Atuahene’s scholarship deals extensively with South Africa’s land restitution process. She has directed a documentary about the subject—Sifuna Okwethu (We Want What’s Ours), now available for purchase here—and is a publishing a counterpart book with Oxford University Press in 2014 titled We Want What’s Ours: Learning from South Africa’s Land Restitution Process. Listen to today’s interview below (or here) and be sure to check out the documentary and book websites.
A roundup of faculty appearances in news sources and media from the last two weeks, 11/21 to 12/5.
11/25 – On WDCB Public Radio, Dean Harold Krent discussed the challenges facing new federal prosecutor Zachary Fardon, who was officially installed at the Federal Courthouse in Chicago on the 25th. Listen to the interview below.
12/1 – Dean Krent was quoted in a front-page Chicago Tribune article about lower law school enrollments and the legal job market (“Law schools adjust to lower enrollments”).
12/2 - Faculty Perspectives, Chicago-Kent’s new online publication that highlights recent faculty scholarship, was featured on IIT Today (“New Publication to Showcase Recent Legal Scholarship by IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law Faculty”).
12/3 – Keith Ann Stiverson, Director of the Chicago-Kent Law Library, was elected Vice President/President-Elect of the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL). She will take over as Vice President in the summer of 2014 and will assume the presidency in 2015. Read her AALL biography and candidate statement here and view the election results here.
12/3 – Clinical Professor Edward Kraus was recognized as the recipient of the Stop Diabetes Award in a Chicago Daily Law Bulletin headline (“In the law schools”). The award, sponsored by the American Diabetes Association, is given “to an individual, group or organization that promotes health awareness, research, advocacy, wellness and/or disease prevention.”
Other news:
12/3 – Professor Adrian Walters authored a new post on his blog, The Walters Way (“More on careers”). Prof. Walters’s advice to law students is that it is “never too soon to start thinking about careers.”
12/4 – Professor Sheldon Nahmod added a new installment to his “Know Your Constitution” series on his blog, Nahmod Law (“Know Your Constitution (5): Free Speech and Hate Speech”).
For more information, contact the Office of Public Affairs at IIT Chicago-Kent.
The ABA Journal has just announced its 7th annual Blawg 100, a list of the publication’s favorite law blogs. Follow the link to peruse the blogs that the journal has chosen for “dedication, creativity and engagement with readers and the other minds of the legal blogosphere.” Users can vote for their favorites here.
Our faculty members have contributed to some of the blogs on the list (and others that are now in the Blawg Hall of Fame), including IPWatchdog, Jotwell, Patently-O. See a selection of recent posts below:
David Schwartz, PAEs under the Microscope: An Empirical Investigation of Patent Holders as Litigants, Patently-O (Nov. 12, 2013)
Chris Buccafusco, Out of the Mouths of Babes: Studying Children’s Judgments about Creativity, Ideas, and Ownership, Intellectual Property Jotwell (May 29, 2013)
Chris Schmidt, The Global Community of Ideas That Created Neoliberalism, Legal History Jotwell (Apr. 30, 2013)
David Schwartz, Contingent Fee Patent Litigation, IP Watchdog (Mar. 25, 2012)
Congratulations to our own Professor Christopher Schmidt, who has been chosen as the winner of the 2014 American Association of Law Schools Scholarly Paper Competition. Prof. Schmidt’s paper, “Divided by Law: The Sit-Ins and the Role of the Courts in the Civil Rights Movement,” was selected from a pool of 60 others by a special committee of law scholars. The AALS press release notes that the Scholarly Paper Competition was established in 1986 “to highlight the excellent work of junior faculty at the urging of then AALS President Roger Cramton.” Schmidt will present his paper at the AALS Annual Meeting on Saturday, January 4, in New York. Read the abstract of the paper below:
The lunch counter sit-in movement of 1960 was a contest not only over nondiscriminatory access to public accommodations, but also over the role of the courts in the developing civil rights movement. The students who launched the sit-ins explicitly defined their protest as an alternative to litigation-based reform tactics. Leading civil rights lawyers, in contrast, urged the students to rely on the judicial process. White business owners and local officials also divided over whether criminal prosecution of the protesters would best serve their interests. These divergent attitudes toward the courts derived from differences of strategy and ideology. They were also affected by developments in Fourteenth Amendment doctrine: by 1960, whether the non-discrimination principle of Brown v. Board of Education reached (or would soon reach) privately owned public accommodations was an open question. Conflict over the appropriate role of the courts ultimately worked to the students’ advantage. It contributed to their collective identity as a protest movement, helped secure outside support, and divided their opponents. Attention to the expectations diverse people placed upon the courts offers a vehicle for charting the ways law and perceptions of law shaped the sit-in movement at various levels—in the streets as well as the courts, among laypeople as well as lawyers and judges. This approach suggests new insights into the intersection of formal legal change and social movement mobilization.
You can now download this paper on SSRN here.
A roundup of faculty appearances in news sources and media from the last week, 11/14 to 11/21.
11/15 – Dean Harold Krent was quoted in a Chicago Daily Law Bulletin article about all nine Illinois law schools posting bar exam pass rates above the national average (“U. of C. hits 99 percent on bar exam pass rate,” behind paywall).
11/15 – Professor Ron Staudt was mentioned in a Chicago Daily Law Bulletin story about The Chicago Bar Foundation’s Justice Entrepreneurs Project (“Bridging the ‘justice gap’”). Staudt, who directs Chicago-Kent’s Center for Access to Justice and Technology, helped plan the Project.
11/15 – Professor Todd Haugh was quoted in a Chicago Sun-Times article about the sentencing of “hacktivist” Jeremy Hammond (“Chicago hacker gets 10 years in prison for cyberattacks”).
Other news:
11/14 - A recent article by Professor Todd Haugh, “Sentencing the Why of White Collar Crime” (forthcoming in the Fordham Law Review), was featured on the White Collar Crime Prof Blog.
11/20 – Professor Sheldon Nahmod authored a new post on his blog, Nahmod Law (“Certiorari Granted in Plumhoff v. Rickard: Excessive Force, High-Speed Police Pursuits and Scott v. Harris”).
For more information, contact the Office of Public Affairs at IIT Chicago-Kent.
[Via Chicago-Kent IPLS YouTube channel]
On November 7, 2013, the IIT Chicago-Kent Intellectual Property Law Society (IPLS) hosted its Third Annual Gastro-Intellectual Property Law Symposium. This year’s conference focused on “Taste Embargo: What Will Happen When the Cuban Embargo Is Lifted?” The Gastro-IP conference is a signature event of IPLS that analyzes pressing issues at the intersection of IP and food.
Intellectual property experts analyzed a range of issues related to intellectual property and the U.S. embargo of Cuban goods, including cigars, rum, and coffee. The WTO decision involving Havana Club Rum—and the U.S.’s failure to correct its violations of the TRIPS Agreement for over a decade—were discussed at length, as well as how 5,000 U.S. companies have managed to register trademarks in Cuba.
Professor Christopher Buccafusco moderated the discussion before a packed audience. Panelists Judith Grubner of Arnstein & Lehr LLP, Joseph Schmidt of Shefsky & Froelich, and Mariano Municoy of Moeller IP Advisors in Argentina discussed the history of the embargo, some of the litigation that has occurred since the embargo went into effect, and what might happen when the embargo ends. A reception followed the lively talk as attendees enjoyed catering provided by 90 Miles Cuban Cafe as well as Cuba Libres and other drinks.
Chicago-Kent is excited to announce the release of Faculty Perspectives, a new publication that will be distributed regularly to highlight recent scholarship by our school’s faculty members. Each issue will feature four to five excerpts from recent or forthcoming faculty articles and books, as well as a special page specifically dedicated to recently published books. The online publication is presented in an attractive, easy-to-navigate format.
The first issue features excerpts from new articles by Mark Rosen and Chris Schmidt, Sheldon Nahmod, and Joan Steinman, as well as a summary of a forthcoming book by Bernadette Atuahene. The issue also highlights new books by Lori Andrews, Ed Lee, and Richard Warner.
View Faculty Perspectives below or click here to view it on issuu.com and to download it as a PDF.
A roundup of faculty appearances in news sources and media from the last week, 11/8 to 11/14.
11/11 – The Chicago Daily Law Bulletin highlighted a recent Chicago-Kent panel on trademark issues and the U.S. trade embargo with Cuba (“If Cuba trade embargo ever ends, trademark fights will likely result,” behind paywall). Professor Chris Buccafusco, who moderated the panel, was quoted in the article.
11/11 – Professor Lori Andrews was interviewed for a CNBC 60 Minutes segment about human gene patents. Watch a video of the interview here or read the transcript here.
11/12 – Clinical Professor Heather Harper was quoted in a Chicago Tribune article on legal advice for startup companies (“Startups and the law: 5 key issues”).
11/14 – Professor Felice Batlan was featured in a Forbes article on whether Americans prefer male or female bosses (“Americans Still Prefer A Male Boss—But Far Less Than They Used To”). As the article notes, Batlan has done her own study on this issue, examining the preferences of legal secretaries.
11/14 – A new working paper by Professor David Schwartz was mentioned in a Legal Newsline article on the effects of patent litigation (“Patent litigation has chilling effect on innovation and services, says critic of Wifi case”). Click here to read more about Schwartz’s paper, titled Patent Assertion Entities (PAEs) Under the Microscope: An Empirical Investigation of Patent Holders as Litigants (coauthored with C. Cotropia and J. Kesan), or download it from SSRN here.
Other news:
11/11 – Professor Sheldon Nahmod authored a new post on his blog, Nahmod Law (“Recent Statutes of Limitation Accrual Decisions in the Circuits ”).
For more information, contact the Office of Public Affairs at IIT Chicago-Kent.
Check out Professor David Schwartz’s recent guest post (coauthored with Christopher Cotropia (Richmond) and Jay Kesan (Illinois)) over at Patently-O, the nation’s leading patent law blog. The post—titled “PAEs Under the Microscope: An Empirical Investigation of Patent Holders as Litigants”—discusses the trio’s working paper of the same name, which takes a critical look at issues surrounding patent assertion entities (PAEs), or “patent trolls.” Read an excerpt from the post below.
Today, a certain type of patent litigant—the non-practicing entity (“NPE”), also known as a patent assertion entity (“PAE”), patent monetization entity (“PME”), or simply patent troll—is the target of much public debate, if not venom. Indeed, President Obama himself got involved in this debate, with his Council of Economic Advisers preparing a report this summer entitled “Patent Assertion and U.S. Innovation.” The Executive Summary of the President’s report sounds the following alarm about PAE suits:
Suits brought by PAEs have tripled in just the last two years, rising from 29 percent of all infringement suits to 62 percent of all infringement suits.
This asserted explosion in PAE-initiated litigation has fed into a wider perception that PAEs are out of control and need reining in by Congress. But is the factual assertion by the President’s report an accurate characterization of total PAE litigation activity?
We address this important issue in our new article, Patent Assertion Entities (PAEs) Under the Microscope: An Empirical Investigation of Patent Holders as Litigants. To investigate PAE litigation, we personally hand-coded all 7,500+ patent holder litigants in 2010 and 2012. In our coding, we finely classified the nature of the litigants, going beyond the simple PAE / non-PAE label. . . .
Based on our data, and contrary to the assertions in the President’s report, we do not find an explosion in PAE litigation between 2010 and 2012. In particular, the President’s report considered only the raw number of lawsuits filed in 2010 and 2012. By limiting its analysis to numbers of cases filed, rather than the underlying parties involved, the President’s report was incomplete and led to an erroneous conclusion.
To understand the reason for this error in the President’s report, one must consider an important change to patent litigation made by the America Invents Act (AIA).
Click here to continue reading at Patently-O about the results of Schwartz and co.’s study, or download the paper from SSRN here.
In an effort to have meaningful discussions about race, join faculty, students and alumni on Wednesday, November 13, at 6:00 pm for the final event in this fall’s Documentary Film Series on Race—a screening of Of Civil Wrongs and Rights: The Fred Korematsu Story (2001, directed by Eric Paul Fournier). The film will be followed by a discussion led by Professor Vinay Harpalani.
Editorial Review:
In 1942, Fred Korematsu was an average 23-year-old California native working as a shipyard welder. But when he refused to obey Executive Order 9006, which sent 120,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry into internment camps, he became something extraordinary—a civil rights champion. Award-winning director Eric Paul Fournier follows Korematsu’s story from the moment he first resisted confinement to the hard-won victory he finally achieved 39 years later, with the help of a new generation of Japanese-American activists seeking vindication and the assurance that such a terrible injustice would never occur again.
Information:
Wednesday, November 13, at 6:00 pm
IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law, Governor Richard B. Ogilvie Auditorium
A roundup of faculty appearances in news sources and media from the last week, 10/31 to 11/8.
10/31 – Dean Harold Krent was quoted in a Naperville Sun news blurb about local artist Paula Kloczkowski Luberda, whose work is currently being featured in “The Art of Influence: Breaking Criminal Traditions,” a human rights art exhibition at Chicago-Kent. The exhibition features 38 pieces of art in a variety of mediums and includes the work of several artists from the Midwest. It runs through February 3.
11/6 – Professor Jerry Goldman was featured in an article in the latest edition of IIT Magazine (“Bringing Attention to the Supreme Court”). The article outlines the history and future plans of Goldman’s Oyez Project, a multimedia archive devoted to the U.S. Supreme Court and its work. The Project houses the country’s largest collection of Supreme Court oral argument recordings—nearly 14,000 hours worth of audio from over 8,100 cases since 1955.
Other news:
11/5 – Professor Adrian Walters authored a new post on his blog, The Walters Way, providing some advice to 1Ls unhappy with their mid-term grades (“Mid-term setbacks”).
For more information, contact the Office of Public Affairs at IIT Chicago-Kent.