program on information justice
and intellectual property
2011-2012 Year In Review
program on information justice
and intellectual property
American University Washington
College of Law’s Program
on Information Justice and
Intellectual Property (PIJIP) was
founded six years ago to reinforce
the law school’s longstanding
commitment to the study and
practice of intellectual property
law and information justice.
During this time, PIJIP has grown
significantly, with an emphasis
PIJIP faculty and guest lecturers at the 2011 Distinguished Lecture on Intellectual Property:
Jorge Contreras, Michael Carroll, Meredith Jacob, Charles E. Van Horn (Senior Counsel at
Finnegan), Sean Flynn, David J. Kappos (Featured Lecturer; Under Secretary of Commerce
and Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office), Jonas Anderson, Christine Haight
Farley, Peter Jaszi, Victoria Phillips, Nabila Isa-Odidi.
on expanding opportunities for
student involvement in all aspects
of the program’s activities.
Our balanced and diverse curriculum covers the full range of intellectual property topics, and the law
school is home to one of the nation’s first intellectual property legal clinics. Under PIJIP’s auspices, faculty,
staff, and students collaborate on public impact projects and events that promote respect for human rights
and the achievement of social justice.
Over the past year, we significantly expanded our patent program with the addition three new faculty
members: Assistant Professor Jonas Anderson, who teaches and writes about patent and trade secret
law; Assistant Professor Jorge Contreras, who specializes in intellectual property licensing and the
intersections of law and science; and Nabila Isa-Odidi ’05, who joined our clinic after six years of
patent litigation experience.
Highlights from PIJIP’s recent accomplishments are inside this brochure. We invite you to visit us at
wcl.american.edu/pijip to learn more about our academic program, pijip-impact.org for information on our
faculty-led research and advocacy projects, and infojustice.org for news and analysis from the expert and
scholar networks PIJIP helps organize.
curriculum
Advanced Copyright Law and Policy
academic opportunities
Advanced Intellectual Property: Patent Litigation
PIJIP offers an unparalleled opportunity to pursue
Advanced Legal Research: Intellectual Property
the advanced study of intellectual property law through
Communications Law and Economic Regulation
Communications Law and Information Policy
Copyright
a full range of intellectual property, communications,
and Internet law courses. A wide variety of student
Cultural Property Law
organizations and publications also provide IP
Cyberlaw
experience: Intellectual Property Law Society, Media and
E-Commerce Law and Drafting
Entertainment Law
Communications Law Society, Sports and Entertainment
Glushko-Samuelson Intellectual Property Clinic
Law Society, and the student-written and edited
Human Rights and Access to Medicines Practicum
Intellectual Property Brief.
Information Privacy
Intellectual Property and Administrative Law
Intellectual Property and Free Trade Agreements
intellectual property
Intellectual Property and Healthcare
summer session
Intellectual Property and Human Rights
PIJIP offers intensive short courses in Washington D.C. and
Intellectual Property and Sustainable Development
Intellectual Property Enforcement at Customs and
Geneva, Switzerland—two global centers for international
Border Agencies
intellectual property policy making—that expose students
Intellectual Property in Cyberspace
and practitioners to cutting edge issues and are taught
Intellectual Property Licensing
Intellectual Property Writing Seminar
by leading scholars in the field from around the world. In
International and Comparative Copyright
addition to AU faculty, summer session professors have
International and Comparative Patent Law
included Daniel Gervais, Peter Yu, Jeremy de Beer, Susan
International Intellectual Property at the World
Intellectual Property Organization
International Intellectual Property
Sell, and Johan Erauw. For more information on summer
course offerings, go to wcl.american.edu/summer.
Writing Seminar
International Technology Licensing Agreements
International Trademark Law
glushko-samuelson intellectual
Introduction to Intellectual Property
property law clinic
Introduction to International Intellectual
The law school’s Gluskhko-Samuelson Intellectual
Property Law
Law and Regulation of Science
Property Law Clinic—one of the first law clinics in the
Law and the Visual Arts
country to specialize in intellectual property—celebrated
Patent and Trademark Appeals
Patent Law
Patent Prosecution
its 10th anniversary in 2011. Student-managed projects
through the clinic involve advising and representing
Space Law and Satellite Communications
creative artists, non-profit organizations, small inventors
Sports Law
and entrepreneurs, scholars, traditional communities, and
Telecommunications Law and Regulation
The World Trade Organization: Rulemaking
and Dispute Settlement
Trade Secrets
Trademark
others who would not otherwise have access to highquality intellectual property law services.
pijip Faculty
Jonas Anderson
Jorge Contreras
Jonas Anderson, Assistant Professor
Jorge Contreras, Associate Professor
of Law, specializes in patent law and
of Law, focuses his current research
intellectual property. His current
on the effects of intellectual property
research focuses on trade secrets,
structures on technical standardization
patent litigation, and patent
and scientific research. He serves as
claim construction.
Co-Chair of the National Conference
• S
ecret Inventions, 26 Berkeley Technology Law Journal
917 (2011)
• Review of Gene Patents and Collaborative Licensing Models:
Patent Pools, Clearinghouses, Open Source Models and
Liability Regimes, IP Law Book Review (2011)
• Informal Deference: An Empirical Examination of Claim
Construction at the Federal Circuit (forthcoming) (with
Peter Menell)
Michael Carroll
Michael Carroll, Professor of Law
and Director of PIJIP, conducts
research on the search for balance in
intellectual property law over time
in the face of challenges posed by
new technologies. He is a founding
member of Creative Commons, Inc., a global organization
that provides free, standardized copyright licenses to
enable and to encourage legal sharing of creative and other
copyrighted works.
• Copyright’s Creative Hierarchy in the Performing Arts,
Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law
14.4: 797-828 (2012)
• Why Full Open Access Matters, PLoS Biology 9.11:
1-3 (2011)
• Tailoring Intellectual Property Rights, in The Structure of
Intellectual Property Law: Can One Size Fit All? (Annette
Kur and Vytautas Mizaras, eds., Edward Elgar Press 2011)
of Lawyers and Scientists and Co-Chair of the Technical
Standardization Committee of the ABA Section of Science &
Technology Law and is member of the Advisory Council of the
National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS)
and the Cures Acceleration Network Review Board of National
Institutes of Health (NIH).
n Empirical Study of the Effects of Ex Ante Licensing
• A
Disclosure Policies on the Development of Voluntary
Technical Standards, National Institute of Standards and
Technology (June 2011)
• Open Access Scientific Publishing and the Developing World,
St Antony’s International Review 8.1:43-69 (May 2012)
• Presenter, The Evolution of Regulatory Complexity in the
Genome Commons (Max Planck Institute for the History of
Science, Berlin, March 2, 2012)
Christine Haight Farley
Christine Haight Farley, Professor
of Law and co-founder of PIJIP,
specializes in the areas of intellectual
property, international law, and art
law. Her current projects study the
intersection of art and IP, and the
unstable basis of rights in the development of trademark law.
• Green Marks, in Research Handbook on Intellectual Property
and Climate Change (Joshua D. Sarnoff ed., Edward Elgar
Press forthcoming 2013)
• Presenter, The Outer Limits of Trademark Protection:
Content and Concept Marks (International Trademark
Association Annual Meeting, International Trademark
Association, Washington D.C., May 7, 2012)
• Presenter, Introduction to U.S. Intellectual Property Law
(Seminars on U.S. Law, University of Havana Faculty of Law
and Center for Inter-American Legal Education, Havana,
Cuba, December 11, 2011)
Sean Flynn
Peter Jaszi
Sean Flynn, Professorial Lecturer
Peter Jaszi, Professor of Law and
in Residence and Associate Director
co-founder of PIJIP, teaches domestic
of PIJIP, examines the changing
and international copyright law and
substance and process of international
supervises copyright matters in the
intellectual property law making and
Glushko-Samuelson Intellectual
its effect on public interest concerns
Property Law Clinic. Jaszi serves
around the world. He serves as counsel for organizations
as a Trustee of the Copyright Society of the USA, and on the
promoting and defending policies that promote access to
Editorial Board of its Journal. Since 2005, he has collaborated
affordable medicines, and is on the Board of Directors for
with American University’s Center for Social Media on
the Frameworks Institute, a public interest communications
projects to promote understanding of fair use by documentary
research firm.
filmmakers, educators, librarians, poets, and other practice
• P
resentations on intellectual property and the public interest
to negotiators of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement in
Chicago, Lima, Los Angeles, Santiago and Melbourne rounds
of negotiations
• A Public Interest Analysis of the Proposed Intellectual
Property Chapter, for a Trans-Pacific Partnership
Agreement, American University International Law Review
(forthcoming 2012) (with Brook Baker, Margot Kaminski,
and Jimmy Koo)
• Presenter, New Directions in International Intellectual
Property (Harvard Law School, Suffolk Law School,
and the 2012 AALS annual meeting)
communities. In 2011 Jaszi was honored by Public Knowledge
Nabila Isa-Odidi ’05
Nabila Isa-Odidi, Practitioner-inResidence in the Glushko-Samuelson
Intellectual Property Law Clinic,
focuses her current research on
patent law and innovation in the
pharmaceutical arena. Prior to joining
the law school, she worked in Morrison & Foerster’s Litigation
Group, where her practice focused on patent litigation,
including proceedings before U.S. District Courts and the U.S.
International Trade Commission. While at Morrison & Foerster,
she represented Complainant Sharp Corporation in Certain
Liquid Crystal Display Modules, Products Containing Same,
and Methods for Using the Same (ITC 337-TA-634; Court of
Appeals for the Federal Circuit).
• P
resenter, Teaching Takeaways: Teaching Identity in
Non-Litigation Clinics (AALS Conference on Clinical Legal
Education, Los Angeles, Calif., April 30-May 3, 2012)
American University Washington
College of Law Administration
Claudio Grossman, Dean
Mary Clark, Associate Dean, Faculty and
Academic Affairs
Anthony Varona, Associate Dean, Faculty and
Academic Affairs
Stephen Vladeck, Associate Dean, Scholarship
with an IP3 Award for contributions to the public interest in
intellectual property. He presently is one of the counsel for
Defendant-Intervenor National Federation of the Blind in
Authors Guild v. Hathitrust, pending in the Southern District
of New York.
• R
eclaiming Fair Use: How to Put Balance Back in
Copyright (University of Chicago Press 2011) (with Patricia
Aufderheide)
• Making and Unmaking Intellectual Property: Creative
Production in Legal and Cultural Perspective (Martha
Woodmansee and Mario Biagioli, eds., University of Chicago
Press 2011)
• Co-facilitator, Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for
Academic and Research Libraries (2012)
Victoria Phillips
Victoria Phillips, Professor of the
Practice of Law and Director of the
Glushko-Samuelson Intellectual
Property Law Clinic, teaches
communications and information law
and policy and is Faculty Advisor to
the Communications and Media Law Society and on the Board
of Faculty Advisors for the Journal of Gender, Social Policy and
the Law. She serves on the Board of Directors of Washington
Area Lawyers for the Arts (WALA).
• G
ender and Invention: Mapping the Connections, 19
American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy &
the Law 767 (2011)
• Speaker, Social Networking: The Electronic Frontier
(ALI-ABA Advanced Employment Law and Litigation,
Washington, D.C., March 22, 2012)
• Speaker, Pedagogical Challenges: Clinical Education in IP
(2012 AALS Midyear Meeting Workshop, When Technology
Disrupts Law: How Do IP, Internet and Bio Law Adapt,
Berkeley, Calif., June 11, 2012)
public impact
PIJIP initiatives reflect a distinctive commitment to ensuring that intellectual property
and information laws respect human rights and promote social justice.
Fair Use
PIJIP and American University’s Center for Social Media (CSM) build tools for creators,
teachers, and researchers to better exercise their fair use rights. The project, led by PIJIP’s
Peter Jaszi and CSM’s Patricia Aufderheide, has produced reports and codes of best practices
in fair use for documentary filmmakers, research libraries, archivists, curators, media literacy
educators, creators of open courseware, online video producers, and poets.
International IP Enforcement and the Public Interest
PIJIP coordinates a global network of scholars and public interest advocates who analyze the
public interest impact of international intellectual property enforcement policies. The project
sponsored large working meetings of scholars and policy advocates in 2011 and 2012 and
houses an extensive resource library at infojustice.org.
IP, Trade, and Access to Medicines
PIJIP organizes courses and provides technical assistance on using intellectual property
limitations and exceptions to promote access to medicines. The project has reached law
students, practitioners, and policymakers from over 50 developing countries.
Prescription Data Privacy
PIJIP’s prescription privacy project has helped consumer groups and state officials make
submissions in over a dozen state legislatures and six federal courts, including the U.S.
Supreme Court, supporting the constitutionality of laws banning the sale and use of
prescriber-identified records for prescription drug marketing.
Trademark and the Public Interest
Professors Victoria Phillips and Christine Haight Farley have worked with communities
challenging the use of trademarks that are disparaging to Native Americans, including through
the organization of an amicus brief of 33 law professors to the Supreme Court in Harjo v. ProFootball, supporting the petitioner’s request to cancel the Washington Redskin’s trademark.
Traditional Cultural Expression
Members of the faculty have written extensively about the role of IP in promoting and
protecting traditional culture. A PIJIP study directed by Professor Peter Jaszi and funded by the
Ford Foundation produced the 2009 report, Traditional Culture: A Step Forward for Protection
in Indonesia, which drew upon extensive field work in that country. PIJIP is also working with
Native American groups to protect tribal names, symbols, and other cultural property.
EVENTS
PIJIP hosts conferences and workshops that educate scholars, lawyers, and the general
public about the evolution of intellectual property law and its effects on society. Two recurring
events anchor the calendar. Each fall, PIJIP hosts a distinguished lecture on intellectual
property. Additionally, PIJIP collaborates with the law school’s Women and the Law Program
and the American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law to sponsor
an annual symposium on the interplay between IP and gender issues.
2011 EVENTS
july 18-19: Research Libraries Workshop
AUG. 25-27: Global Congress on Public Interest Intellectual Property Law
OCT. 5: Golan v. Holder: Copyright, the Public Domain, and the First Amendment
at the Supreme Court
OCT. 25: Current Directions in Open and Public Access
NOV. 3: Music, Copyright, and the UCLA Law School Music Copyright
Infringement Resource
NOV. 7: Technology and the Threat to Privacy: How Facebook, GPS, and Google are
Changing Our Lives
NOV. 17-18: Workshop on Research and Resource Commons in Scientific Research
NOV. 30: Seventh Annual Finnegan Distinguished Lecture on Intellectual Property:
Undersecretary of Commerce and Director of the U.S. Patent and
Trademark Office David Kappos
DEC. 18-20: Meeting of Global Expert Network on Limitations and Exceptions
to Copyright
2012 EVENTS
JAN. 25: Regulating Innovation: How the Patent and Trademark Office Intends to
Create Adjudication from Scratch
FEB. 8: Freedom From Speech and Freedom from Harm: Debating the FCC’s
Indecency Regulations as Framed by FCC v. Fox Television
FEB. 14: The Federal Circuit: 30 Years Back, 30 Years Forward
FEB. 14: Whose Information is it Anyway? Health Information Privacy in the
Digital Age
MAR. 21-22: Inaugural Conference on Global Health, Gender, and Human Rights
APR. 11: Innovation and Intellectual Property: The Brazilian Business Agenda
APR. 16: Empowering Users/Creators to Take Control of Their Intellectual Property
For more information and webcasts, visit wcl.american.edu/pijip/go/events.
4801 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20016-8181
wcl.american.edu
EO/AA University and Employer
upcoming events and meetings 2012-2013
For further information and registration, see wcl.american.edu/pijip
Aug. 27, 2012
Sept. 7-8, 2012
The Apple v. Samsung Verdict: Is Your Smart-Phone Illegal?
Trademark Works In Progress Colloquium
Sept. 12, 2012Recent Developments in Fair Dealing – The Canadian Perspective
Sept. 14-15, 2012Global Limitations and Exceptions Network Workshop
Sept. 27, 2012Media Piracy, Intellectual Property & Emerging Economies
Sept. 28, 2012
Oct. 16, 2012
Mid-Atlantic Patent Works in Progress Colloquium
Intellectual Property, Trade, and Development
Co-Sponsored by the IP Law Society and the Trade Law Society
Nov. 1, 2012Distinguished Lecture on Intellectual Property Law - Professor
Christopher Sprigman: The Knockoff Economy
Nov. 2, 2012The Ninth Annual IP-Gender: Mapping the Connections –
Creativity Outside of Intellectual Property’s Domain
Co-sponsored by the Women and the Law Program
Nov. 2-3, 2012Glushko-Samuelson Intellectual Property Clinic Reunion 10th Anniversary
Nov. 7, 2012
Already, LLC v. Nike, Inc.: Post Argument Reflection
Dec. 14-17, 2012Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest
(Rio De Janeiro, Brazil) Co-Sponsored by Centro de Tecnologia e Sociedade, Fundação Getulio
Vargas and the American Assembly
Apr. 5-6, 2013Cherry Blossoms Conference on New Directions in Intellectual
Property Scholarship
Spring 2013 A Review of the 2012 Decisions of the Federal Circuit
Spring 2013 Intellectual Property Enforcement and Trade
Spring 2013Intellectual Property Brief Symposium
Co-Sponsored by the American University Law Review and the IP Law Society
Co-Sponsored by the IP Law Society and the Trade Law Society
Co-Sponsored by the IP Law Society and the Trade Law Society
Scan for more on PIJIP.