Prof. Peter K. Yu

Regents Professor of Law and Communication

Director, Center for Law and Intellectual Property

Texas A&M University


 

 

conferences

 

WHAT IFS AND OTHER

ALTERNATIVE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

AND CYBERLAW STORIES

 

Michigan State University College of Law

 

March 30-31, 2007

 

DESCRIPTION

 

Since the emergence of intellectual property and cyberspace laws, there have been many landmark court decisions and legal developments. One topic that has yet to be explored in an academic conference is what might have happened had history been developing in a different direction. How would the entertainment industry and the consuming public have fared had the U.S. Supreme Court found Sony contributorily liable for manufacturing videotape recorders? What would today's U.S. biotechnology industry be like had Diamond v. Chakrabarty been decided differently? Would the Internet be the same if the constitutionality of the Communications Decency Act were upheld in Reno v. ACLU? What might have happened to the international intellectual property system had the nineteenth-century anti-patent movement prevailed? This conference brings together intellectual property and cyberlaw scholars to explore alternative stories about copyright, patent, trademark, cyberspace, media, and international intellectual property law.

 

SCHEDULE

 

March 30, 2007

 

8:30

Breakfast

 

9:00

Welcoming Remarks

  • Prof. Peter K. Yu, Michigan State University College of Law & Asian Studies Center, Michigan State University

9:15

Opening Storyteller:

  • Prof. Kevin W. Saunders, Michigan State University College of Law

"What if every 'if only' statement were true?"

9:30

Free Speech, Privacy and Virtual Reality

 

Moderator:

  • Prof. Adam Candeub, Michigan State University College of Law

Storytellers:

  • Prof. Ann Bartow, University of South Carolina School of Law

"What if pornography was not eligible for copyright protection?"

  • Prof. Amy Gajda, College of Communications & College of Law, University of Illinois

"What if Samuel D. Warren's daughter had eloped?"

  • Prof. Greg Lastowka, Rutgers School of Law—Camden

"What if reality were pervasively augmented?"

  • Prof. Cheryl B. Preston, J. Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young University

"Free Speech and Internet Pornography: What if Congress and the Supreme Court had been tech Savvy in 1995?"

11:00

Break

 

11:15

Patent Law

Moderator:

  • Prof. Adam Mossoff, Michigan State University College of Law

Storytellers:

  • Prof. Timothy R. Holbrook, Chicago-Kent College of Law

"What if patents and patent applications weren't published until they expired?"

  • Prof. Michael J. Meurer, Boston University School of Law

"What if economists ran the patent office"

  • Prof. Joseph Scott Miller, Lewis and Clark Law School

"What if Joe Meigs had written the nonobviousness statute?"

  • Prof. Katherine J. Strandburg, DePaul University College of Law

"What if we relied on user innovation to produce business methods and did away with business method patents?"

  • Prof. Greg Vetter, University of Houston Law Center

"What if the GPL had been patented?"

  • Prof. Elizabeth I. Winston, Columbus School of Law, Catholic University of America

"What if you couldn't patent seeds?"

1:15

Luncheon

 

Keynote Storyteller:

  • Prof. Mark A. Lemley, Stanford Law School

"Ignoring Patents"

2:45

Copyright Law I

Moderator:

  • David Levine, Fellow, Center for Internet and Society, Stanford Law School

Storytellers:

  • Prof. Michael W. Carroll, Villanova University School of Law

“What if the Section 512 safe harbors for online service providers had not been enacted?”

  • Dean Jon Garon, Hamline University School of Law

"What if DRM fails?"

  • Prof. Michael Landau, Georgia State University College of Law

"What  if the anti-bootlegging statutes really are upheld under the Commerce Clause?"

  • Prof. Mary Wong, Franklin Pierce Law Center

"What if the WIPO Development Agenda is adopted?"

4:30

Coffee Break

 

4:45

Copyright Law II

 

Moderator:

  • Prof. Derek E. Bambauer, Wayne State University Law School

Storytellers:

  • Robert A. Heverly, Lecturer in Intellectual Property Law, Norwich Law School, University of East Anglia

"What if information was alive?"

  • Prof. Doris E. Long, Michigan State University College of Law

"What if trademarks weren't the ugly stepsisters of intellectual property?"

  • Prof. Michael J. Madison, University of Pittsburgh School of Law

"What if the ancient Romans had invented the printing press? Justinian copyright in the 21st century"

  • Prof. Tyler Ochoa, Santa Clara University School of Law

"What if Goldstein v. California had been decided differently?"

6:15

Friday Sessions Adjourned

 

7:00

Dinner Reception

 

Restaurant Villegas

1735 Grand River Avenue, Okemos, MI

 

March 31, 2007

 

8:30

Breakfast

 

9:00

General IP Law

Moderator:

  • Prof. Ned Snow, University of Arkansas School of Law

Storytellers:

  • Prof. Peter Bowal, Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary

"What if the stud does not function?"

  • Prof. James Gibson, T.C. Williams School of Law, University of Richmond

"What if we used IP rights to impede evil industries?"

  • Prof. Debora Halbert, Department of History and Political Science, Otterbein College

"What if WIPO did not exist?"

  • Prof. Liam S. O'Melinn, Pettit College of Law, Ohio Northern University

"What if James Madison were to assess the intellectual property revolution?"

10:30

Break

 

10:45

Copyright Law III

 

Moderator:

  • Prof. Matthew Sag, DePaul University College of Law

Storytellers:

  • Prof. Susan Corbett, Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand)

"What if object code had been excluded from protection as a literary work in copyright law?"

  • Prof. Julie D. Cromer, Thomas Jefferson School of Law

"What if man never walked on the moon?"

  • Prof. Abraham Drassinower, University of Toronto Faculty of Law

"What if copyright were really about authors?"

  • Prof. Deborah Tussey, Oklahoma City University School of Law

"What if employees owned the copyrights in their works?"

12:30

Luncheon

 

2:00

Trademark Law I

 

Moderator:

  • Prof. Laura A. Heymann, William & Mary School of Law

Storytellers:

  • Prof. Irene Calboli, Marquette University Law School

"What if trademarks were, after all, protected as property?"

  • Prof. Mark P. McKenna, St. Louis University School of Law

"What if trademark law focused on consumer search costs?"

  • Prof. Lars S. Smith, Louis D. Brandeis School of Law, University of Louisville

"What if eBay Inc. v. MercExchange, L.L.C. had been a trademark case?"

3:45

Break

 

4:00

Trademark Law II

 

Moderator:

  • Prof. Deven Desai, Thomas Jefferson School of Law

Storytellers:

  • Prof. Barton Beebe, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University

"What if the Supreme Court Had Affirmed in Dastar?"

  • Prof. John T. Cross, Louis D. Brandeis School of Law, University of Louisville

"What if The Trademark Cases had been decided the other way?"

  • Prof. Lisa P. Ramsey, University of San Diego School of Law

"What if there were no First Amendment distinction between commercial and noncommercial speech: would trademark law be constitutional?"

  • Prof. Rebecca Tushnet, Georgetown University Law Center

"What if comparative advertising were infringing?"

5:45

Closing Remarks

  • Prof. Peter K. Yu, Michigan State University College of Law & Asian Studies Center, Michigan State University

6:00

Conference Adjourned

 

6:30

Dinner Reception

 

Dusty's Cellar

1839 W Grand River, Okemos, MI

 

CONFERENCE FELLOWS

 

Prof. M. Scott Boone

Appalachian School of Law

 

Prof. Deven Desai

Thomas Jefferson School of Law

Prof. Amy Landers

McGeorge School of Law, University of the Pacific

 

Prof. Oskar Liivak

Cornell Law School

 

Prof. William McGeveran

University of Minnesota Law School

 

Prof. Martine Courant Rife

Communication Department, Lansing Community College

 

Prof. Michael Risch

West Virginia University College of Law
(beginning fall 2007)

 

Prof. Joseph B. Rousseau

Entrepreneurship Department, Northwood University

 

Prof. David L. Schwartz

John Marshall Law School

 

Prof. Wendy Seltzer

Brooklyn Law School

 

Prof. Trevor Smedley

Faculty of Computer Science, Dalhousie University

 

Prof. Andrew W. Torrance

University of Kansas School of Law


Katja Weckstrom

Visiting Fellow, Chicago-Kent College of Law

 

WEB LOG ENTRIES

 

43(b)log by Rebecca Tushnet

Other Entries

 

Derek E. Bambauer

William McGeveran

David Levine

SYMPOSIUM ISSUE AND OTHER PUBLICATIONS

 

2008 Mich. St. L. Rev. 1-433

 

Peter K. Yu, What Ifs and Other Alternative Intellectual Property and Cyberlaw Stories: An Introduction, 2008 Mich. St. L. Rev. 1

 

Kevin W. Saunders, What If Every "If Only" Statement Were True?: The Logic of Counterfactuals, 2008 Mich. St. L. Rev. 9

 

Mark A. Lemley, Ignoring Patents, 2008 Mich. St. L. Rev. 19

 

Amy Gajda, What If Samuel D. Warren Hadn't Married a Senator's Daughter?: Uncovering the Press Coverage That Led to "The Right to Privacy," 2008 Mich. St. L. Rev. 35

 

Cheryl B. Preston, The Internet and Pornography: What If Congress and the Supreme Court Had Been Comprised of Techies in 1995-1997?, 2008 Mich. St. L. Rev. 61

 

Jon M. Garon, What If DRM Fails?: Seeking Patronage in the iWasteland and the Virtual O, 2008 Mich. St. L. Rev. 103

 

Michael Landau, What If the Anti-Bootlegging Statutes Are Upheld Under the Commerce Clause?, 2008 Mich. St. L. Rev. 153

 

Susan Corbett, What If Object Code Had Been Excluded from Protection as a Literary Work in Copyright Law? A New Zealand Perspective, 2008 Mich. St. L. Rev. 173

 

Abraham Drassinower, Authorship as Public Address: On the Specificity of Copyright Vis-à-vis Patent and Trade-Mark, 2008 Mich. St. L. Rev. 199

 

Deborah Tussey, What If Employees Owned Their Copyrights?, 2008 Mich. St. L. Rev. 233

 

Katherine J. Strandburg, What If There Were a Business Method Use Exemption to Patent Infringement?, 2008 Mich. St. L. Rev. 245

 

Greg R. Vetter, Claiming Copyleft in Open Source Software: What If the Free Software Foundation's General Public License (GPL) Had Been Patented?, 2008 Mich. St. L. Rev. 279

 

Elizabeth I. Winston, What If Seeds Were Not Patentable?, 2008 Mich. St. L. Rev. 321

 

Irene Calboli, What If, After All, Trademarks Were "Traded in Gross"?, 2008 Mich. St. L. Rev. 345

 

John T. Cross, The Lingering Legacy of Trade-mark Cases, 2008 Mich. St. L. Rev. 367

 

Peter Bowal & Christopher Bowal, What If . . . the Stud Does Not Function?, 2008 Mich. St. L. Rev. 389

 

Liam Séamus O'Melinn, What If James Madison Were to Assess the Intellectual Property Revolution?, 2008 Mich. St. L. Rev. 401

 

M. Scott Boone, The Past, Present, and Future of Computing and Its Impact on Digital Rights Management, 2008 Mich. St. L. Rev. 413    

 
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