Is It So Ordered? Evaluating the Actual Authority of Supreme Court Precedent in Intellectual Property Law

Mr. Moskin’s presentation was titled “Lobbying, Lawmaking, and Reactions to Supreme Court Jurisprudence.” Mr. Payne’s presentation was titled “Managing Copyright on the Ground: The District Courts and the Copyright Office.”

Mr. Moskin participated as a speaker in the trademark law panel. J. Russell VerSteeg, professor of law at New England Law School; Janet Cullum, partner at Cooley LLP; and Jeremy Sheff, professor at St. John’s University School of Law, participated on the panel as well. The panel discussion explored how the legal system seeks to balance public policy and the various interests at play with Supreme Court precedent.

Mr. Payne moderated the copyright law panel. Panel participants were Jed S. Rakoff, judge of the Southern District of New York; Hugh Hansen, Fordham professor and director of the Intellectual Property Institute; and Sam Israel, representative of the defendant in the Supreme Court copyright case Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons. The discussion focused on Professor Hansen’s theory that district court judges rarely apply high court precedent in copyright cases and instead let their desire for a given outcome drive their decisions. Judge Rakoff and Professor Hansen had opposing views on the theory.

The judge’s panel discussion was also recently cited in Law360 on November 13th, 2012 in their Top News Section. The article, titled “Judges Should Eye Tech Changes In Copyright, Rakoff Says,” is available here.

A full description of “Is It So Ordered? Evaluating the Actual Authority of Supreme Court Precedent in Intellectual Property Law” is available here.