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Projects

The Future Law Project

A research center at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. I am the founder and faculty director.

The Future Law Project (FLP) produces a forum for leadership conversations about ongoing transformations in two areas. 

One is the future of law as a field of expertise and information. By tradition, that’s the legal profession, but traditions are changing.  Amid massive and continuing disruptions in economic conditions, technologies, and social and physical mobility, both locally and globally, what is the future of legal education?  Of law firms, nonprofit organizations, and other legal services providers?  Courts and other dispute resolution institutions?  Systems for providing access to law, legal information, and justice itself? 

Two is the future of law itself as political, economic, and cultural infrastructure, again, amid massive changes to economic, technological, and geographic conditions.

A Pittsburgh Intellectual Property Hall of Fame

A list of the best, most influential, and/or most entertaining and provocative forms of Pittsburgh-focused intellectual property — copyright-protected works of authorship; patented inventions; trademarks and service marks; and trade secrets and confidential information — of the last 100-plus years. I created it in 2020.

Items, people, and companies are included or omitted based entirely on one person’s judgment (mine), based on 20 years of living and working in Pittsburgh, 30 years of working in and studying intellectual property law, and more than 50 years of cultivating idiosyncratic tastes. [Image via DALL-E and craiyon]

The Law of Intellectual Property

A book. This law school casebook on intellectual property law was published from 2005 through 2017 in five editions in total.

I co-authored all five editions with Craig Nard (Case Western Reserve University). The third, fourth, and fifth editions were also co-authored with Mark McKenna (UCLA). The first and second editions were also co-authored with David Barnes (Seton Hall).

Three Rivers IP & Tech Law Colloquium

A conference. I co-founded this annual event for IP and tech policy researchers in 2018, with Jacob Rooksby (then of Duquesne University, now dean of Gonzaga University School of Law).

The event is a forum for scholarly conversations among researchers affiliated with universities in the “Three Rivers” region, centered in Pittsburgh but broadly defined. Hosting rotates annually between Pitt Law and Duquesne Law.