High Tech Leadership Tech LawForumBy Larry Sokoloff '92
In the world of intellectual property, change happens quickly. The same technology that creates new business opportunities and convenience also creates new legal issues and challenges. To discuss those challenges in a split-second world, the law school’s High Tech Law Institute has created Tech LawForum (TLF). Comprised of blogs, videos, and pod casts, TLF is much more than a Web site—it is a neutral online arena where the high tech law community can explore and discuss critical legal issues in the high tech field. Drawing on work by members of the local legal com munity as well as Santa Clara Law students, the forum’s current focus is two topics: patent law and policy and Internet policy. The former concentrates on developments and trends in the Supreme Court, the PTO, and Congress. The latter covers issues such as jurisdiction, regulation, and e-commerce. The inaugural TLF in October 2006 focused on legislative and legal challenges in the patent field. TLF is the brainchild of Jenny Lynn Cox, an assistant dean and the executive director of the High Tech Law Institute at the School of Law since 2005. Having taught technology licensing and related courses at the School of Law for several years, and having served as general counsel and senior corporate counsel at several Silicon Valley high tech companies, she is steeped in the issues. "I haven’t seen anything else like this in an academic setting," says Cox. "I wanted to explore ways we could be a leader in innovation, in the ways we use technology to reach out to practitioners, scholars, students, and others interested in the field."
TLF is emerging as a leading online voice in the area, and participation in and reaction to the site has been very positive. "The site is excellent," applauded Joseph Milowic III in a recent e-mail. An intellectual property lawyer for Woodcock Washburn in Philadelphia, Milowic was the valedictorian of his class at Rutgers School of Law-Camden in 2001 and was recently named a "rising star" by Law & Politics Magazine. "Access to the thought leaders in intel lectual property is typically limited to reading their articles or traveling and paying to listen to them at conferences," he explained. "But Tech LawForum, if it can continue to deliver these thought leaders through its content-rich fea tures like ‘video on demand,’ could help to inform and elevate the national discourse on the critical role that our nation’s intellectual property laws play in our global econo my and future."
Before the forum was launched, Cox spent a year gath ering input from representatives of ten high tech law firms who provide advice and financial support to the High Tech Law Institute. Benefactor firms include Bingham McCutchen; Blakely, Sokoloff, Taylor and Zafman; Weil Gotshal & Manges; Fenwick & West; Cooley Godward Kronish; McDermott, Will & Emery; Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe; Morrison & Foerster; Schwegman, Lundberg, Woessner & Kluth; and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. The blogs on the forum, she said, came out of these meetings. One blog focuses on high tech news, while another is the first in the nation to focus on U.S. District Court rulings on patent law nationwide. "No one else was doing that," Cox says.
The law firms supporting the forum represent all viewpoints in high tech law, Cox says. "We stay neutral by trying to have a range of viewpoints on our site." Erik Schmidt, a second-year law student who helped create the site’s look and feel, agrees, saying "We’re not trying to tell people what to think." Schmidt is not the only student helping the forum get off the ground. Two other second-year students, Mark Smith and Michael Gorman, work for the forum part-time. Some student contributions have come from articles written by law students in Advanced Research in IP Law, a class that Cox taught during the 2006 fall semester. Each student was paired—via the Internet—with an attorney in the field who could mentor them through the research and writing project. Lawyers have also contributed articles to the forum. The inaugural issue featured articles by attorneys at Sun Microsystems and Morrison & Foerster. Some of the articles the forum is printing have been previously published elsewhere, Cox says. "Tech LawForum is a way for lawyers to learn and to contribute to learning," she emphasizes. "The content on the site is intentionally shorter and more real-time than law review articles."
The forum’s video library contains proceedings of a half-dozen panel discussions that have been held in the local area, co-sponsored by the High Tech Law Institute and other groups such as the Silicon Valley Intellectual Property Law Association and the Licensing Executives Society. The podcasts offer views from across the political spectrum, presented by panelists ranging from a scholar at Stanford’s Hoover Institution to an attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Darren Donnelly ’97, a patent law attorney with Fenwick & West, sat on the advisory board that helped plan TLF. He’s pleased with the patent law topics covered on Tech LawForum. "They’ve brought together a lot of resources that are of interest to the patent law community," Donnelly says. "It’s a great resource for the legal community to discuss high tech issues." Cox wants TLF to grow slowly so that it will maintain a reputation for quality. "We want to do what we do well," s he says. In the future, TLF may add fellows (recent law graduates with experience in the high tech field) who can continue expanding its offerings, as well as a separate director who can guide it."It’s an entrepreneurial project in a lot of ways," she says. But so far, Cox is excited by what she sees. "It’s great to do something that engages the students and the community," she adds. For more information, visit www.techlawforum.net. LARRY SOKOLOFF is Assistant Editor of Santa Clara Law. |
