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2025 Three Rivers Intellectual Property and Technology Law Colloquium

The Eighth Annual Three Rivers Intellectual Property and Technology Law Colloquium

The Three Rivers Intellectual Property and Technology Law Colloquium (home) is produced by the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, carrying on a partnership with the Duquesne University Thomas R. Kline School of Law. Both law schools are in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, home of the famous meeting of three rivers: the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers converging to form the head of the Ohio River.

We invite you to share your papers and projects at a working papers colloquium for and among faculty in intellectual property and technology law. We expect the primary participants to be those teaching at law schools in the Three Rivers region. We define the Three Rivers expansively: central and western Pennsylvania, West Virginia, eastern and northeastern Ohio, and western New York. Other faculty members are welcome to attend, space permitting. The total size of the colloquium is expected to be 12-15 people, divided roughly between people with papers to share and people without.

Date:

Friday, January 17, 2025, preceded by an informal welcome dinner for in-person participants on Thursday evening, January 16, 2025.

Venue:

The colloquium will take place in person in the “Eberly Room,” a/k/a Room 419, on the Fourth Floor of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law

Host:

Michael Madison, University of Pittsburgh School of Law

RSVPs and for more information:

[For information about the Colloquium, contact Michael Madison.]

Presenters and discussants (alphabetical):

Paper presenters should deliver their manuscripts to Michael Madison no later than Friday, January 7, 2025.

Format:

Wide-open discussions are preferred; early stage work is welcome. Participants are expected to have read or reviewed all drafts in advance of the colloquium. Formal presentations are strongly discouraged. Presenters should expect to have at most 5 minutes of time to lay out one or two key initial notes or questions about the work. There will be no slides!

The host will intervene as appropriate to preserve time for participant questions and conversation.

For guidance as to the format, read: Michael Risch (Villanova Law), “The Virtues of Getting Shredded.”

Colloquium Schedule (download a printable copy here)

Papers can be downloaded from the cloud. For access, get the link from Michael Madison.

Morning:

8:30 am to 9 am: Gather and chat

  1. 9 am – 9:40 am: Mark Bartholomew, “Publicity Rights After Warhol“
  2. 9:50 am – 10:30 am: Cynthia Ho, “Trademark Dispossession”
  3. 10:40 am – 11:20 am: Mehtab Khan, “A Spectrum of Digital Repatriation”
  4. 11:30 am – 12:10 pm: Matt Blaszczyk, “Posthuman Copyright”

12:00 noon to 1:00 pm: Lunch

Afternoon:

  1. 1:00 pm – 1:40 pm: Martin Skladany,  “Maxing Out AI Danger”
  2. 1:50 pm – 2:30 pm: Sean Tu , “Strategic Barriers to Generic Competition”
  3. 2:40 pm – 3:20 pm: J.S. Nelson, “The Oversight in Oversight”
  4. 3:40 pm – 4:20 pm: Lea Bishop, “Generative”
  5. [Not on the presentation schedule but available for review and comment: Aaron Perzanowski, “How Intellectual Property Ends”

Departure. Drinks. Or Whatever is Next

Hotel information

In-person attendees should make their own travel and housing arrangements and bear their own related expenses. The University of Pittsburgh School of Law is located in Pittsburgh’s Oakland neighborhood. Hotel options in Oakland have proliferated in recent years, giving attendees several options to choose from if they want to walk from their hotel to Pitt Law. Nearby hotels include (in order of proximity to Pitt Law):

Parking Information

If you’re coming from outside of Pittsburgh, need to park in the Oakland neighborhood, and don’t plan to stay in a nearby hotel, here are the best parking options, in order of size:

  • Soldiers and Sailors Parking Garage
  • Forbes Semple Garage, at 210 Meyran Avenue, between Forbes Avenue and Sennott Street
  • UPMC – Forbes Tower Garage, at 215 Meyran Avenue, between Forbes Avenue and Sennott Street
  • Forbes Surface Lot, on Sennott Street at Atwood Street

Dinner – Thursday, January 16, 2025, at Casbah, at 6:15 pm.

In-person attendees are welcome to join a pre-colloquium dinner hosted by the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.

Our venue will be Casbah, in Pittsburgh’s Shadyside neighborhood, 229 South Highland Avenue. Casbah is a quick and easy ride from any Pittsburgh neighborhood where you are likely to live or be staying. Casbah is, today, something of a Pittsburgh institution, a reliable and comfortable source of fresh and (sort of) Mediterranean cuisine, with a terrific wine list and cocktail bar. Casbah’s menu is online here.

Time: 6:15 pm.

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