Jay Kesan's Presentation on Intellectual Property & Technology

The next briefing session in the ICR's Initiative on Communications, Culture, and Policy, funded by the Ford Foundation, will be held on Friday, March 5, at 1:30 p.m. in the Peterson Conference Room (231 Gregory Hall). The very distinguished speaker will be Professor Jay Kesan, who holds positions in the College of Law and the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, and is the Director of the Program on Intellectual Property and Technology Law at the College of Law. The title of his talk is (Un)Intellectual Property.

ABSTRACT The primary focus of copyright law has historically been on striking a balance between rewarding authors while preserving the ability to disseminate original works of expression. Writers of 20th-century copyright law, however, did not envision the advent of digital technologies nor their impact on the protection of intellectual property. What are the promises, pitfalls, and current challenges posed by intellectual property (IP) in a technological world? Discussing specific recent examples, Professor Kesan addresses this question, identifies the political and economic reasons for many of the underlying problems, and proposes changes to existing IP regimes to better attain the gains promised by IP for society.

Suggested readings:
Interested participants can take a look at the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) at <http://www.ssrn.com> and they will be exposed to a wide variety of writings on IP, including all of Professor Kesan's recent work http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/results.cfm

Jay Kesan's (<mailto:kesan@uiuc.edu>) academic interests are focused in the area of intellectual property, Internet regulation and law and technology. He received his J.D. summa cum laude from Georgetown University, where he received several awards including Order of the Coif, and served as Associate Editor of the Georgetown Law Journal. After graduation, he clerked for Judge Patrick E. Higginbotham of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Prior to attending law school, Kesan--who also holds a Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering--worked as a research scientist at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center in New York. He is a registered patent attorney and practiced at the law firm of Pennie & Edmonds LLP. In addition, he has published numerous scientific papers and obtained several patents in the U.S. and abroad. In December 2000 and January 2001, he was a JSPS Invited Fellow and Visiting Associate Professor at the University of Tokyo, Japan. He has also served as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Georgetown University Law Center, and in Spring 2004, he will hold the Distinguished Jerold Hosier Visiting Chair in Intellectual Property at DePaul University. Professor Kesan also teaches in the International and Comparative Intellectual Property Law Summer Program, sponsored by the University of Illinois College of Law, St. Peter's College of Oxford University, and the University of Victoria, British Columbia. Professor Kesan has written extensively in the areas of patent law and patent institutions, law and the regulation of cyberspace, intellectual property, and law and economics, and he recently received a three-year grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to study how information technologies regulate behavior.