On Thursday, November 2, leaders in intellectual property gathered in Chicago for an inaugural Roundtable established by The John Marshall Law School’s Center for Intellectual Property, Information & Privacy Law. The Roundtable series was designed for leaders in government, industry, academia and the bar to frankly exchange ideas in a way that is not normally possible. Participants were free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker, nor that of any other participant, could be revealed.
The inaugural session focused on highly contentious issues at the intersection of IP, competition and trade. For each topic area, there were brief remarks presented by discussion leaders, followed by discussion by all participants. The purpose was not to stake out positions but to examine the current state of affairs and what might be possible now or in the future. This served to highlight what is known, move the debate beyond the rhetoric at conferences and find solutions to common challenges.
This Roundtable consisted of three parts. It began with a discussion on the influence of current political and international developments. The discussion then turned to the specific context of standard-setting and examined key disputes to discern what the key points of contention were and the basis for the position taken. Finally, participants looked holistically at industries where IP, competition and trade issues intersect to distill connection and possible solutions to points of concern.
“This is a significant milestone in our 80-year history of being at the cutting edge of IP,” said Daryl Lim, Director of John Marshall’s Center for Intellectual Property, Information & Privacy Law. “The twenty-five or so individuals we invited to this Roundtable were all newsmakers in their own right. That they agreed to gather at John Marshall for this important occasion helps establish our reputation as a focal point for high-level meetings with real-world significance.”
Participants included Federal Appeals Judge Pauline Newman, former Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust Renata Hesse, former FTC Chair Bill Kovacic, former International Trade Commission Commissioner Scott Kieff, FTC Chief IP Counsel Suzanne Munck, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Senior Counsel Mark Cohen, European Telecommunications Standards Institute Chair Dirk Weiler, Intel Corporation Vice President and Counsel to President Greg Slater, Senior Director for Qualcomm Inc. Kurt Kjelland, Director (IP and Competition Policy) for Qualcomm Inc. Koren Wong-Ervin, Assistant General Counsel for Microsoft Greg Sivinski, President of the American Antitrust Institute Diana Moss and Fordham Law School Professor Hugh Hansen.
