Have you written a paper recently that sits in a drawer somewhere? How about putting it to work to earn some money for you?

The New York State Bar Association (NYSBA), with more than 76,000 members, is the nation’s largest voluntary statewide association of lawyers and the official statewide organization of the legal profession. It is composed principally of practicing attorneys, judges, law professors, and many non-practicing lawyers who are business executives, government officials, court administrators and so forth.

The Intellectual Property Law Section of the NYSBA introduces members of the NYSBA to the interesting and growing areas of law which make up intellectual property law, including patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, licensing, and Internet issues.

We invite you to participate in our Eleventh Annual Law Student Writing Competition. The winners receive cash prizes and are presented with an award during the Annual Meeting in January. In addition, the Section publishes the winning papers on the NYSBA website and in the Section’s newsletter, Bright Ideas. Additional details are available at www.nysba.org/IPWritingContest

We hope you will take advantage of this fantastic opportunity and submit a paper for consideration before the deadline of December 7, 2009. We wish you the best of luck.

Sincerely,

Joyce L. Creidy, Esq.
Chair, IP Law Section

Students: US $ 300

You may register for the 2009 Summer School on IP in Geneva from January 7 to May 15, 2009. Email resume together with a statement of purpose (giving reasons why you wish to apply for the Summer School and what you hope to gain from it) to: summerschool.geneva@wipo.int

More information

HOW VIRTUAL IS REALITY?

We would like to call your attention to this year’s Summer School “How Virtual is reality?” (http://how-virtual-is-reality.eu/) held in Bremen (Germany) from July 10 to July 19. The course is mainly addressed to graduate and postgraduate students like Master students and PhD candidates, but undergraduates with experience in the field are also very welcome to apply!

As a cooperation of the University of Bremen, the University of Oldenburg and the Jacobs-University (Bremen) the Summer course will broach the issue of the relevance of new environments like “Second Life” or “World of Warcraft” for nowadays culture and social life with special focus on rituals and religions.

Instructed by more than 15 international teachers, the participants of the Summer School will engage into the interdisciplinary study of practical methods and theoretical approaches for the scientific handling of ritual and media. The media will not only be subject to methodological, theoretical and practical research and discussion but will also serve as platform for academic exchange and teaching. After this Summer School participants will be able to design and perform research projects on religion in and within Virtual Worlds.

Please forward this information to everyone who might be interested in the course! A banner and a poster will soon be available on the “Media” section of the website.
We are looking forward to many interesting applications!

The organizers
Kerstin Radde-Antweiler
Simone Heidbrink

Date(s): 03.27.09 Fri
Time: 8:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.
Location: McNally Amphitheatre
Sponsor: Center on Law and Information Policy

This symposium will explore the legal issues faced by internet intermediaries and their impact on society.

http://law.fordham.edu/ihtml/eventitemPP.ihtml?id=37&idc=9597&template=cle

Student RSVP:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?key=pJ8DSJ7UpAi_i_2HIt0I2SQ

1. Stanford CIS Summer Intern

CIS is hiring a Summer Intern!

http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/node/6053

The Center for Internet and Society (CIS) at Stanford Law School is looking for a volunteer Summer Intern to work on public interest issues involving technology and the Internet.

CIS is a leading center for the study of the relationship between the public interest, law and technology. CIS was founded by law professor Lawrence Lessig and is headed by Lessig and law professor Barbara van Schewick. The Center’s executive director is Lauren Gelman; Anthony Falzone directs the Fair Use Project.

The Summer Intern works with Lauren, Tony, and the Center’s residential fellows on various projects and litigation, including cases challenging the extension of copyright to works that had passed into the public domain, protecting and expanding fair use rights, protecting the rights of Internet publishers to speak anonymously, protecting speech interests against claims of intellectual property infringement, and providing legal information in response to cease and desist letters sent to Internet publishers. There is also an opportunity to work on issues around privacy and data security within the CIS Consumer Privacy Project.

Qualifications:
Second and third year law students are preferred, as is experience with computers and office software. This is an unpaid volunteer position; upon request, the Center is willing to write letters of support for student funding programs.

Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis with preference given to those received by March 1st.

Interested applicants should submit a resume, transcript, and a writing sample in PDF format via email to:

Amanda Smith
asmith@law.stanford.edu

2. Announcing the
HONORABLE WILLIAM C. CONNER
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW
WRITING COMPETITION FOR 2009
sponsored by
THE NEW YORK INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
LAW ASSOCIATION (NYIPLA)

Awards to be presented at the NYIPLA Annual Meeting and Dinner held in New York City in May, 2009
The Winner will receive a cash award of $1500.00
The Runner-up will receive a cash award of $1000.00
The competition is open to students enrolled in a J.D. or LL.M. program (day or evening). The subject matter must be directed to one of the traditional subject areas of intellectual property, i.e., patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, unfair trade practices and antitrust. Entries must be submitted by March 18, 2009, to the address provided below. See Rules for details on submission requirements.

Rules:
The New York Intellectual Property Law Association created a writing competition for law students and appropriately named it “The William C. Conner Intellectual Property Law Writing Competition”, after its former president and Senior District Judge, William C. Conner. In recognition of his significant contributions to the field of Intellectual Property, in 1992 the Association established this competition in his name. The Honorable William C. Conner is an esteemed Senior Judge for the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.

NEW YORK INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW ASSOCIATION
RULES FOR THE HONORABLE WILLIAM C. CONNER
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW WRITING
COMPETITION

1. All entrants must be law school students currently enrolled in a J.D. or LL.M. program (day or evening).
2. An entry must be directed to any of the traditional subject areas of intellectual property, i.e., patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, unfair trade practices and antitrust.
3. All entries must be submitted by March 18, 2009, to:
John T. Moehringer, Esq.
Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP
One World Financial Center
New York, NY 10281
Tel: +1 212.504.6731
Fax: +1 212.504.6666
john.moehringer@cwt.com
4. Entries may be submitted on paper or in electronic form. If submitted on paper, an entry should be typed or printed on 8 ½ x 11 inch paper with double-spaced text, in 11 point or larger font. If submitted in electronic form, an entry should be either in “Microsoft Word” or “PDF” format, and further should be formatted as double-spaced text on 8 ½ x 11 inch paper (paper orientation: portrait), in 11 point or larger font. There is a twenty-five (25) page limit for all entries.

http://nyipla.org/WritingComp/WritingCompRules.htm 2/9/2009

5. The entries will be judged on analysis, writing ability and pertinence. The top papers will be submitted to the Board of the NYIPLA for evaluation and determination of a winner and runner-up.
6. The winner will receive a cash award of $1,500.00 and a plaque at the NYIPLA
Annual Meeting and Dinner. The runner-up will receive a cash award of $1,000.00
and a plaque at the Annual Meeting and Dinner. The winning paper will be
considered for publication by the NYIPLA. The winner and runner-up should plan to attend the Annual Meeting and Dinner.
7. Entries previously submitted for consideration by or publication in scholarly journals will be accepted, but publication by NYIPLA must be permitted.

Whether the Federal Circuit’s “machine-or-transformation” test for patent eligibility, which effectively forecloses meaningful patent protection to many business methods, contradicts the clear Congressional intent that patents protect “method[s] of doing or conducting business.” 35 U.S.C. § 273.

Read more about it at Slashdot.

Attendees may receive up to 5 CLE Credits (4 Substantive and 1 Ethics CLE credits available, approved by the PA Continuing Legal Education Board). Breakfast and lunch will be provided.

For more information and registration, please visit our website www.temple.edu/law/tjstel/symposia.html , or call (215) 204-1755.

Confirmed Speakers:

Hon. Kent A. Jordan, U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit

John J. Jones, Cantor Fitzgerald
Andrea V. Lockenour, GlaxoSmithKline
David L. Marcus, Comcast Cable Communications
Chen Wang, E.I. du Pont de Nemours

Professor David Post, Temple University
Professor Donald Harris, Temple University

Matthew H. Adler, Pepper Hamilton
Ashar Akhtar, Legal Advantage
Mirza Baig, Legal Advantage
Timothy Devlin, Fish & Richardson
Joseph P. Gushue, Volpe & Koenig
Nikhil Heble, Pepper Hamilton
Michael Leonard, Pepper Hamilton
Aneesh Mehta, Volpe & Koenig
Frank Peterreins, Fish & Richardson
Jeffrey Porter, Reed Smith
Jeffrey Rosedale, Woodcock Washburn
Michael F. Snyder, Volpe & Koenig

(Speaker list is subject to change.)

Panels:
Thinking Globally: Local organizations in a global IP world
Acquiring Rights: Patent and Trademark acquisition across nations
Enforcing Rights: Strategies and expectations for international litigation of IPR
Alternative Measures: Arbitration and non-traditional IP enforcement methods
The Inequitable Conduct Doctrine and Attorney-Client Privilege: Managing Foreign Counsel and Local Prosecution (ethics component)

Please contact me directly for additional information and I will send to you our latest informational brochure regarding the event.

Dooogle is a great project, a comment on the ubiquitous practice of “Googling someone” (see current raging debate re: the Urban Dictionary definition of “oogle”), the celebrity of the “Google” TM and search interface, and the wealth of personal information that is freely and quickly available online. Also offers a dreamy amount of possible trademark and copyright “concerns.” Dooogle uses Google’s search algorithm and graphic design but fairly — advertisements are absent and Doogle certainly isn’t selling. Parody? Not really. Could one even say use is transformative? Dilution via blurring is weak.

Had this been commercial, what about possible trademark trade dress claims w/r/t website “look and feel”? Or would this be preempted by copyright? Googling “trade dress website,” I learned that, so far, a “novel claim” and NOT preempted by copyright on a motion to dismiss: Blue Nile Inc. v. Ice.com. Also found this charmer.

–JK