Fourth Annual University of Toronto Patent Colloquium

Thank you for joining us on November 20, 2015 for the Fourth Annual Patent Colloquium!

Materials from the Colloquium presentations will be posted here:

Panel 1: MacKendrick-Ethier-Cameron-UTILITYPANEL

Panel 2: No Materials

Keynote Speech: Dreyfuss.Toronto.2015-2

Panel 3: Christopher-Seaman-Permanent-Injunctions-Ongoing-Royalty-U.S.

Panel 4: No Materials

This year’s Colloquium focused on topics of interest to the Canadian Federal bench, including “International Arbitration (Eli Lilly v. Govt of Canada)”; “Sound Prediction and the Promise of a Patent” (similar to the U.S. doctrine of constructive reduction to practice); “Has the Time Come for a Patent Office Court to Determine Patent Validity?”; and “The Evolving Landscape of Patent Remedies”. Our keynote speaker was Prof. Rochelle Dreyfuss, Pauline Newman Professor of Law, and Co-Director of the Engelberg Center on Innovation Law and Policy, New York University School of Law. Speakers included Prof. Ruth Okediji, University of Minnesota Law School; Alexander Stack, Cognition LLP; and Prof. Talha Syed, University of California, Berkeley Law School. Moderators included Justice Roger Hughes and Justice Russel Zinn, of the Federal Court of Canada.

When: Friday, November 20, 2015, 9:00 am – 4:30 pm

Where: Hart House Great Hall, 7 Hart House Circle

Click here to see the full schedule: Agenda-2015 Patent Colloquium

To register: utpatent2015.eventbrite.ca

Details about the keynote speech:

Investor-State Settlement of Intellectual Property Disputes: “ISDS and IP”

Rochelle Dreyfuss, Pauline Newman Professor of Law, NYU School of Law

The complaint Eli Lilly filed against Canada under the Investment Chapter of NAFTA should have most countries scared, for lurking within a multiplicity of bilateral and plurilateral free trade and investment agreements are provisions similar to the one on which the Lilly claim is based.  In the keynote address, I will argue that should its claim succeed, Lilly will have significantly altered national authority to respond adequately to disruptive technologies, to changes in the creative environment, to novel categories of invention, or to business models that exploit patents in new ways.  Indeed, reframing intellectual property rights, which were once merely incentives to invent, as commodities of trade or investment assets will make it difficult for countries to promote domestic concerns regarding such matters as health, education, and the environment.  Since no state can be sure that it will remain at the innovation frontier, all should stand together to halt this reconceptualization.  The address will end with proposals for interpreting the impact of existing agreements and for revising international lawmaking so that intellectual property mechanisms can be used to motivate innovation without damaging state authority to safeguard public values. The talk is based on an article coauthored with Susy Frankel, From Incentive to Commodity to Asset: How International Law is Reconceptualizing Intellectual Property, which is to be published in an upcoming issue of the Michigan Journal of International Law.