Colloquium on Technology, Innovation and Intellectual Property PolicyThe Colloquium on Technology, Innovation and Intellectual Property Policy, directed by Professors Graeme Austin and David Adelman, continued throughout the fall semester at the Rogers College of Law. The Colloquium featured appearances by a quartet of visiting scholars. Each presented a “work-in-progress” to students, Law College faculty, and legal practitioners.

The Unpublished Public Domain:
Professor Anthony Reese, spoke on the topic, “The New Unpublished Public Domain.” Reese, Thomas W. Gregory Professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law, predicted how legal regulation of unpublished works is likely to change in light of the December 31, 2002, integration of state and federal copyright protections.
Celebrities’ Rights of Publicity:
Professor Stacey L. Dogan, from the Northeastern University School of Law, presented her views on “What the Right of Publicity Can Learn from Trademark Law.” While courts and commentators have tended to rely on copyright law to justify and put limits to the right of publicity, Professor Dogan argued that a better analogy is trademark law. This approach avoids some of the worst abuses of the right, limits conflict between the right of publicity and First Amendment principles, and puts the right on a more solid conceptual grounding.
Patented Pharmaceuticals and the Developing World:
John H. Barton, George E. Osborne Professor of Law at Stanford Law School addressed the IP Colloquium on the topic, “TRIPS, Access to Pharmaceuticals and Developing Nations.” Professor Barton reviewed the international controversy over patents and access to drugs in developing countries and explored the implications of the 1995 Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement, the 2001 Doha Declaration, and the 2003 agreement preceding the Cancun meeting.
Patent Citations and Network Analysis:
Professor Katherine Strandburg presented her work on “Modeling Innovation by a Kinetic Description of the Patent Citation System.” The paper on which she is a co-author applies network analysis approaches from statistical physics to a study of the patent citation network. The goal of the study is to gain a better understanding of the structure and dynamics of the United States patent system and to investigate the implications of current patenting behavior for innovation policy and law.