So says Visiting Professor Mark Lemley, who is bolting from Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law to teach at Stanford for the fall semester. Lemley is a co-director of the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology. He teaches intellectual property, computer law, patent law, antitrust, and electronic commerce law. In addition to his teaching, Lemley practices law as counsel to the law firm of Keker & Van Nest, where he litigates and counsels clients in the areas of antitrust, intellectual property and computer law. He is the author of six books and numerous articles on these and other subjects. Professor Lemley received his J.D. from Boalt and his A.B. from Stanford. Regarding his time at Stanford, Lemley says, "I will be teaching patent law and a seminar on intellectual property and antitrust law. My current work focuses on efforts to rationalize the patent system by changing the law relating to continuation applications, by changing the rules for determining willful infringement, and by giving the courts greater leeway to adapt the rules of patent law to the needs of particular industries." We are very pleased to welcome Professor Lemley to the Program
in Law, Science & Technology, and look forward to the results
of his collaboration with students and faculty at Stanford Law School. Brief Interview with Lemley: LST@Stanford: First, I was wondering why you have chosen to focus on the fields of patent law and antitrust in your scholarship. In light of your expertise regarding patents and antitrust, I thought it would be interesting to hear how you got started working in these areas, and why you continue to do so. Prof. Lemley: I got interested in antitrust law in college here at Stanford, where I studied economics and industrial organization. My interest in patent law came out of its overlap with antitrust, though it has since come to dominate my scholarship. Patent law is one of the least theorized and least studied of all legal disciplines. There is so much work that needs to be done in this field. Do you think that public attitudes towards the notion of intellectual property are changing, following from, say, the RIAA’s recent crackdown on illegal downloaders? Do you believe that academic lawyers have a responsibility to clearly explain to the public and to government officials just what IP means and stands for? Prof. Lemley: Intellectual property 30 years ago didn’t really impact the lives of most people. That has changed dramatically. IP stories are front-page news on a regular basis, and everyone from college students to parents has to confront legal issues they never would have encountered in the pre-digital world. Some members of the public will encounter these laws and recoil, saying, in effect, “how can this apply to me?” An academic’s job is to educate lawyers and the public about this legal system, but even more important is our obligation to make sure the system itself is working properly, and to speak out if we find it isn’t. What are the most pressing issues in your field of study at this particular world historical moment? Do you believe that they will change much in upcoming years, or is there an aspect to patent law that is naturally resistant to changing social currents? Prof. Lemley: For patent
law, the most pressing problem is abuse of the patent system.
The system works pretty well, but as more people discover the importance
of patents there are more and more cases in which the system is
used to stifle innovation, not to promote it. |
