Jennifer Jenkins of Duke Law’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain writes to tell us of their upcoming events.

What: Hot Topics in Intellectual Property Law Symposium
Date: Friday, April 1, 2005
Time: Registration/breakfast at 8:15 am, presentations begin at 9:00 am
Location: Duke Law School, Room 3043 and breakout rooms
Full Schedule: http://www.law.duke.edu/student/act/intprop/Symposium2005/sympinfo.htm

The day begins with experts from Red Hat, the European Union, and other major Software IP players discussing their views with one another in a topical panel debate entitled Software: Patents vs. Open Source.

Then, attend prolific author George Gilder’s exciting keynote presentation,
Patents vs. Latents – Invention and the Law.

This will be followed by informative breakout sessions given by IP experts from private practice, government, and academia.

View the full schedule and register at http://intprop.law.duke.edu.
Students attend free. CLE Credit available.

What: “Patenting Life and Its Parts: Ethics and Rights in the Political Economy of Intellectual Property”
Who: Professor Daniel Kevles of Yale University
Date: 04/07/05
Time: 12:15 p.m.
Location: Duke Law School, Room 3043
Lunch will be served

Since the late 1970s, patents have been issued on living organisms and their parts, including microrganisms, plants, animals, and genes. These developments enjoy strong support in a number of quarters, including the biotechnology industry, university technology transfer offices, and the patent bar, who hold that such patents guarantee to inventors the natural right to the fruits of their labors. However, they have also stimulated widespread dissent in the academy and among patients’ rights groups, religious groups, and social activists. Part of the dissent is ethical, a consideration that has no place in U.S. patent law but does explicitly appear in European patent law. Professor Kevles will discuss these and other issues during his lecture.

What: “Working Knowledge: Ownership of Workplace Knowledge and the Rise of Corporate Intellectual Property, 1800-1930”
Who: Duke Law Professor Catherine Fisk
Date: 04/14/05
Time: 12:15 p.m.
Location: Duke Law School, Room 3043
Lunch will be served
(More details to come)

Professor Fisk is currently writing a book on intellectual property rights in the nineteenth-century employment relationship. Her recent publications include “Knowledge Work: New Metaphors for the New Economy,” Chicago-Kent Law Review (2004); “Authors at Work: The Origins of the Work-for-Hire Doctrine,” Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities (2003); and “Working Knowledge: Trade Secrets, Restrictive Covenants in Employment, and the Rise of Corporate Intellectual Property, 1800-1920,” Hastings Law Journal (2001). Prior to entering law teaching, she was an attorney for the Civil Appellate Division of the United States Department of Justice in the District of Columbia; an associate at Rogovin, Huge & Schiller in the District of Columbia; a law clerk for the Honorable William A. Norris, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit; and a staff attorney for the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.