Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property Adds LL.M. to Renowned IP Program

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WASHINGTON, Sept. 22, 2014 – American University Washington College of Law’s (AUWCL) Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property (PIJIP) is pleased to announce that it is now accepting applications for a new ABA-approved LL.M. Degree Program in Intellectual Property, and is looking forward to welcoming the inaugural class in Fall 2015. When combined with existing JD and SJD courses, and the IP Summer Session (open to practitioners and law students from other universities), this LL.M. program will give AUWCL one of the largest sets of curricular offerings in the field of intellectual property and information law.

VIDEO: Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property at AUWCL

“We are thrilled to add an LL.M. in Intellectual Property to our broad array of offerings in this dynamic and growing subject area,” said Dean Claudio Grossman. “Our law school has supported and invested in IP faculty and programs over the last 30 years with wonderful success. PIJIP’s forward-thinking programs will continue to make an impact around the world for years to come.”

AUWCL’s new LL.M. in Intellectual Property is designed for U.S. and foreign attorneys who seek specialized knowledge in the complex, rapidly evolving and increasingly global field of intellectual property law. The program will be operated in conjunction with AUWCL’s established LL.M. programs, serving over 200 students from over 60 countries annually. The LL.M. in Intellectual Property requires successful completion of 24 credits of coursework, including the writing of a thesis or an equivalent substantial written work product. Program participants are eligible to complete course work for the degree in the International Organizations, Law and Diplomacy Summer Program in Washington and Geneva and the Intellectual Property Summer Program. The LL.M. offers two specializations – U.S. Intellectual Property Law, and International and Comparative Intellectual Property Law.

Intellectual Property Teaching and Scholarship

AUWCL has long been a leader in intellectual property teaching and scholarship. Well before most U.S. law schools had any intellectual property courses in their curriculum, AUWCL played an important role in offering specialized training for would-be patent practitioners. Those continuous classes of IP-specialized students fill the top ranks of the IP practice today, particularly in the Washington, D.C. area. AUWCL alumni include the Honorable Sharon Prost ’79, who recently became the Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, managing partners of the IP practices at leading law firms, executives in non-governmental organizations, and teachers, scholars, and researchers in the academy.

Efforts to cement AUWCL’s leadership in the field have been spearheaded by Professor Peter Jaszi, long the anchor of the IP program and one of the most prolific and well regarded copyright experts in the world today. Professors Jaszi and Christine Haight Farley founded and co-directed PIJIP beginning in 2006. Currently directed by Michael Carroll, PIJIP now works with AUWCL’s seven dedicated intellectual property faculty and a dozen other full-time and adjunct faculty who teach related courses. Full-time faculty teach courses in every major topic of the field, including Copyright, Patent, Trademark, Trade Secrets, Cyberlaw, and the program offers a full array of international intellectual property law courses. PIJIP takes full advantage of the law school’s location in Washington, D.C. to support one of the most extensive adjunct faculties in the country who teach a variety of specialized courses.

IP Clinic a Model for the Field

Over a decade ago, AUWCL founded the Glushko-Samuelson IP Clinic, one of the first of its kind and one that has served as a model for the field. Last year, clinic students submitted briefs in the U.S. Supreme Court cases Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc., involving the 1980 Martin Scorsese film "Raging Bull," and American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. v. Aereo, Inc., involving Aereo’s cloud antenna and DVR service. The Clinic joined the Law School Patent Troll Defense Network, a national consortium of law school clinics that will provide free legal representation to small app developers and other entrepreneurs that have been threatened or sued by patent trolls, and clinic students submitted Comments in a proceeding at the Department of Commerce explaining how statutory damages provide necessary tools for “copyright trolling.”

PIJIP implements AUWCL’s motto – Champion What Matters – through a large array of research and public impact projects that focus on promoting the public interest in intellectual property and information law. This past academic year, PIJIP became the U.S. Affiliate of Creative Commons – perhaps the best-known open access law and policy organization in the world. Other ongoing public impact projects include:

  • Fair Use Best Practices. PIJIP and the AU Center for Social Media recently launched two new Best Practices in Fair Use guides: Set of Principles in Fair Use For Journalism and Code of Best Practices for Academic and Research Libraries.
  • Global Expert Network on Copyright User Rights. The Global Expert Network of over 40 comparative copyright law and policy experts organized by PIJIP recently published a Model Flexible Copyright Limitation and Exception and is currently developing an empirical research project to examine the social and economic impact of copyright user rights.
  • International Intellectual Property and the Public Interest. PIJIP promotes the inclusion of public interest concerns and participation by academic researchers and experts in the formulation international intellectual property law, including by monitoring secretive trade agreement negotiations and by providing public comments in response to the United States’ unilateral “Special 301” enforcement program.
  • Infojustice.org. PIJIP manages infojustice.org, a news and analysis blog and set of online research libraries on international intellectual property issues featuring dozens of commenters from around the world.
  • Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest. PIJIP serves on the steering committee of a unique annual gathering of over 500 public interest advocates and scholars to chart goals and strategies for promoting a positive agenda for international intellectual property law.
  • Standards Essential Patents and FRAND Licensing. PIJIP coordinates a group of experts developing a research agenda on voluntary licensing of Standards-Essential Patents. The group published a database of publicly available commitments on such licensing made outside of standards-development organizations.
  • Disparaging Marks and the Washington Football Team. PIJIP faculty have worked with Native American communities and intellectual property scholars to represent public interest concerns in the ongoing litigation over the cancelation of the Washington, D.C. football team’s trademark.

PIJIP hosts dozens of events, meetings, and conferences every year. Recurring events include the Peter Jaszi Distinguished Lecture on Intellectual Property, IP/Gender Mapping the Connections, and PIJIP’s Supreme Court Series featuring post-argument reflections by counsel to parties in intellectual property cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The AUWCL IP curriculum includes one of the broadest and most varied course lists in the world. JD students can begin focusing on IP in their second semester with the popular 1L elective Introduction to Intellectual Property Law and Policy. Upper division and graduate students can select from more than 30 intellectual property and related courses, including introductory and advanced courses in every major field of intellectual property. In addition, student organizations at AUWCL publish a cutting-edge news and legal analysis blog – the IP-Brief – edit a leading annual law review volume on the Federal Circuit, and participate in several affinity groups on IP issues.

Each summer, American University Washington College of Law offers a unique selection of courses for students as well as practitioners in two policymaking centers, Washington, D.C. and Geneva, Switzerland. The Geneva program is the only ABA-Accredited law school program featuring international intellectual property course work at the World Intellectual Property Organization and the World Trade Organization. U.S. law students may apply with their home institutions for academic credit for any of the courses. Academic credit may also be available for foreign law school students at schools that have partnerships with AUWCL.

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In 1896, American University Washington College of Law became the first law school in the country founded by women. More than 100 years since its founding, this law school community is grounded in the values of equality, diversity, and intellectual rigor. The law school's nationally and internationally recognized programs (in clinical legal education, international law, and intellectual property to name a few) and dedicated faculty provide its 1700 JD, LL.M., and SJD students with the critical skills and values to have an immediate impact as students and as graduates, in Washington, DC and around the world. For more information, visit wcl.american.edu.