AIPLA Committee Report and Workplan
DATE: APRIL 23 2015
MEETING: SPRING MEETING
COMMITTEE NAME: EDUCATION COMMITTEE
COMMITTEE LEADERSHIP:
Chair: Ehab M. Samuel
Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP
ESamuel@manatt.com
Vice-Chair: Justin S. Cohen
Thompson & Knight LLP
Justin.Cohen@tklaw.com
MISSION:
The Education Committee's mission is to address issues concerning the education of law students and
others about Intellectual Property; to increase the awareness of Intellectual Property, in general, among
law students, prospective law students, law school administrators and others.
PROJECTS:
2015 Patent Prosecution Boot Camp. The Education Committee is coordinating AIPLA’s first Patent
Boot Camp on the West Coast in Los Angeles, California. The program will be held immediately
preceding the AIPLA Spring meeting at the same hotel – JW Marriott in downtown Los Angeles – on
Tuesday, April 28th and Wednesday, April, 29th. This will also give the attendees an opportunity to
mingle with practitioners at the Spring meeting.
Our Boot Camp Subcommittee is co-chaired by Ehab Samuel and Yelena Morozova. One way for
committee members to get involved would be to attend or present as an instructor at the Boot Camp. If
you are interested to get involved, please send an email to Ehab at ESamuel@manatt.com and Yelena at
morozova.yelena@gmail.com.
Law School Online Programming. The Education Committee recently launched its new law school
online program geared at providing “practice ready” training and education for law students. Our
inaugural program was a live webcast by Sam Helfgott on April 1 on “PCT Filing and International Patent
Prosecution.” The program is administered in partnership with participating law schools. In total, there
were twelve (12) law schools that participated in our inaugural webinar. The program was a great
success as we increased student membership and received very positive feedback from the participating
law schools. The Education Committee is currently planning the next online program for September
2015 soon after law schools resume.
Academic Voice Newsletter. Last year, the Education Committee launched its own newsletter called
the Academic Voice. The first issue was published in October of 2014 before the Annual meeting. The
newsletter focuses on hot topics for academia, and provides a forum for the exchange of information
about teaching resources, pedagogy, and ideas in order to assist adjunct professors with ideas as well as
to keep full-time faculty members in touch with the practice. This appears to be particularly important
and timely in light of the recent trend in legal education to integrating experiential teaching and
maintaining closer ties to practice in the classrooms, as well as to keep members apprised of the status
of pending legislation and recent developments in Federal Circuit law. If you are interested to
participate in, share an opinion or publish in the newsletter, please email Donika Pentcheva
(dpentcheva@wck.com) and Justin Cohen (Justin.Cohen@tklaw.com).
Law Professor Subcommittee. The Education Committee continues to build on its commitment for
expanding the law professor initiative. Our IP Law Professor Subcommittee provides a platform for
present and future full-time and adjunct IP law professors to discuss resources available to IP law
professors, best practices, techniques for get involved in teaching, and other issues of interest.
We have set up a LinkedIn® page for the Law Professor Subcommittee. If you are interested to share
ideas and connect with fellow IP professors on our LinkedIn® page, please send an email to Don
Cameron at dcamaron@bereskinparr.com. This has proven to be a great resource for networking
among adjunct professors and full-time IP professors.
The Coordination Role of the Education Committee. The Education Committee will continue to serve as
a communication, networking and teaching resource. The committee plans to continue its liaison
activities with the substantive committees and hold joint meetings with other committees on topics of
interest to a cross-section of attorneys. We are also planning various activities with other committees
such as the New Lawyers and Law Students Committees.
If you are interested to learn about how you can get more involved in the AIPLA and the Education
Committee, please send an e-mail to Ehab Samuel at ESamuel@manatt.com and Justin Cohen at
Justin.Cohen@tklaw.com.