Section Programs | Saturday - February 14, 2009
8:30 – 10:00 a.m.
Compulsory Licensing and Other IP Controls
Co-sponsored by the ABA Section of International Law
Important changes are occurring or imminent in a number of nations that affect intellectual property rights. There is a widening gulf among nations in their views and treatment of intellectual property. The arena where the issue of IP rights is most at issue today involves efforts by some nations to limit IP rights through compulsory licenses. The governments of several nations have announced decisions to impose compulsory licenses on patented products, and other governments are considering such actions. In these recent cases, compulsory licenses are not being used for their traditional purpose of assuring that a product protected by intellectual property rights but essential to a critical public need is put into production. Instead, the latest rounds of compulsory license initiatives seek to lower the prices of patented products that already are being made available in-country. Proponents of such initiatives defend them as needed to combat health crises and as complying with international law. They also urge that, while the current focus is on compulsory licensing initiatives of less economically developed nations, even wealthy nations use compulsory licenses routinely for a variety of purposes at odds with the paradigm historical justification of limiting IP rights to meet essential public needs. This program explores recent developments, reviews the competing claims, and considers compulsory licensing of both copyright and patent rights and other efforts around the world to restrict or regulate use of intellectual property rights in ways that push beyond the historically accepted boundaries of IP regulation.
Moderator:
Yee Wah Chin, Ingram Yuzek Gainen Carroll & Bertolotti, LLP
Speakers:
Honorable Ronald A. Cass, President, Cass & Associates, Dean Emeritus of Boston University School of Law and former Vice-Chairman of the United States International Trade Commission
Greg S. Slater, Director, Global Trade and Competition Policy, Intel Corporation
William W. Fisher III, Hale and Dorr Professor of Intellectual Property Law, Harvard University; author, Developing Drugs in Developing Countries (with Talha Syed) (forthcoming Stanford University Press 2009); Promises to Keep: Technology, Law and the Future of Entertainment (Stanford University Press 2004)
10:15 – 11:45 a.m.
Privacy in the Digital World of the Internet, E-Commerce, and Post-9/11 America
This program addresses the issue of data privacy and security in the age of digital information and cyberspace. How can people take advantage of the benefits of digital data, the Internet, modern telecommunications, and electronic commerce without losing their privacy? Most people regularly provide data for a range of personal, commercial and governmental purposes, but they are largely unaware of the ways and extent to which data can be searched, consolidated, and mined to be put to unexpected uses. What rights should people have to personal data, and when do they relinquish those rights by sharing such data? The government has a limitless appetite for data to support law enforcement and national security initiatives. How can we balance the desires, and in some cases legitimate needs, of government and industry against the value of personal and group privacy? What demands are legitimate on each side? How well do current regulatory regimes address these issues, and how can they be improved? What can we learn from the approaches of other countries? What is the role of information technology in facilitating and controlling data collection and use, and how can technology help avoid or minimize the loss of privacy? If we will have to learn to live in a less private world, how can technology and regulation nonetheless make it one in which the right to privacy survives in a recognizable form?
Moderator:
Steven M. Emmert, Senior Director, Government & Industry Affairs, Reed Elsevier, Inc.
Speakers:
Harry R. Lewis, Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science, Harvard University, (Dean of Harvard College, 1995-2003), co-author, Blown to Bits: Your Life, Liberty, and Happiness After the Digital Explosion (Addison-Wesley 2008), on the origins and public consequences of the explosion of digital information.
Susan Landau, Distinguished Engineer at Sun Microsystems Laboratories, concentrating on the interplay between security and public policy; co-author (with Whitfield Diffie), Privacy on the Line: The Politics of Wiretapping and Encryption (MIT Press 2007), on the history and policy debate over the tension between privacy and national security
Martin E. Abrams, Senior Policy Advisor and Executive Director, Centre for Information Policy Leadership at Hunton & Williams LLP
1:45 – 3:15 p.m.
IP Protection of Computer Software: The State of Copyright, Patent, and License Protection for Computer Programs
- How adequate is copyright law in protecting current and future software?
- Seventeen years after the Second Circuit’s decision in Computer Associates v. Altai that provided the framework for determining copyright infringement by computer software, how is that decision working in practice?
- After In re Bilski and its reformulation of the test for patent-eligible subject matter, does patent law provide an adequate alternative or supplement to copyright protection?
- Is it possible to provide significant patent protection for software without also protecting more questionable business methods?
- Does the Supreme Court’s conclusion in Quanta v LG Electronics that the patent exhaustion doctrine applies to method patents further undermine patent protection for software?
- What issues do the emergence of virtualization, software as a service, and cloud computing give rise to?
- How are commercial licensing models affected by the growing use of open source software?
- Does the application of the first sale doctrine to a software license in Vernor v. Autodesk raise a red flag for license protection for software?
- How can the problem of distinguishing between license conditions or scope limitations and contractual covenants, in light of the critical consequences of the difference, best be addressed?
Marc K. Temin, Partner, Foley Hoag LLP, Boston, MA
Speakers:
Copyright law:
Randall Davis, Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, MIT; Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, MIT; Chairman of the National Academy of Sciences study on intellectual property rights and the information infrastructure entitled The Digital Dilemma: Intellectual Property in the Information Age (National Academy Press 2000); expert to the court in Computer Associates v. Altai; frequent expert in software-related litigation
Patent law:
Scott M. Alter, Partner, Faegre & Benson, Denver, CO
Licensing law:
Penelope S. Wilson, Senior Director, Senior Intellectual Property Counsel, EMC Corporation, Hopkinton, MA
3:30 – 5:00 p.m.
Hot Topics in Patent Litigation in the Aftermath of Major Decisions
- Obviousness after KSR and the Roles of Judges and Juries
- Patentable Subject Matter and Method Patents after In re Bilski and Quanta v LG Electronics
- Injunctions, Preliminary and Permanent, and Mandatory Licenses 3 Years after MercExchange v. eBay and after Abbott Laboratories v. Sandoz
- Forum and Venue Selection after In re Volkswagen
Moderator:
Philip C. Swain, Partner, Foley Hoag LLP, Boston, MA
Speakers:
Robert O. Lindefjeld, General Counsel and Chief IP Counsel, Nantero, Inc.
Jerry A. Riedinger, Partner, Perkins Coie LLP, Seattle, WA
Denise W. DeFranco, Partners, Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner, LLP, Cambridge MA
Section Events Schedule
Friday, Feb. 13, 2009:
8:00 - 10:00 a.m.
Officers Meeting
10:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Council Meeting (w/ lunch)
4:00 - 6:30 p.m.
Long Range Planning Committee Meeting
7:00 - 10:00 p.m.
Council Dinner at Davio's
Saturday, Feb. 14, 2009
8:00 - 10:00 a.m.
Annual Review Editorial Board Meeting
8:30 - 10:00 a.m.
CLE Program: Compulsory Licensing and Other IP Controls
(co-sponsored by the ABA Section of International Law)
10:00 a.m. - noon
Books Editorial Board Meeting
10:15 - 11:45 a.m.
CLE Program: Privacy in the Digital World of the Internet, E-Commerce, and Post-9/11 America
Noon - 2:00 p.m.
Magazine Editorial Board Meeting
1:45 - 3:15 p.m.
CLE Program: IP Protection of Computer Software: The State of Copyright, Patent, and License Protection for Computer Programs
2:00 - 4:30 p.m.
Content Advisory Board Meeting
CLE Program: Hot Topics in Patent Litigation
Course Materials
