Perspectives

Update from Wisconsin’s Annual Summer Meeting for Intellectual Property Lawyers

Gary Van Domelen recently participated in the State Bar of Wisconsin’s Annual Summer meeting for Intellectual Property Lawyers in Door County Wisconsin. The two day conference draws renowned speakers and in-house attorneys from around the country to discuss recent trends in patent law, software licensing and copyright infringement. Gary has practiced Business law for over twenty-five years. He reported back to us, with highlights from the convention.

Ms. Shara Aranoff, Commissioner and Former Chair of the US International Trade Commission (ITC), presented an update regarding the ITC protections—specifically those available to companies and owners of patents and other intellectual property, against third parties seeking to import goods that infringe on the true owners’ intellectual property.

Robert Sloss, in-house counsel for Oracle, spoke about the difficulties software licensors have enforcing their patent rights, following some recent decisions in various federal circuit courts.

There was another presentation by Eric Goldman, Associate Professor of Law at Santa Clara University. He discussed the vigorous, ongoing debate between companies and groups like the ACLU—the former aiming to obtain internet users’ private information in order to better protect their websites and infrastructure from hackers, and the latter maintaining that such information-gathering gives the government “unprecedented” access to the financial, medical, and other private information of individual citizens.

For more on this topic, read the following article:
What Is CISPA and Why Would the President Veto It?

Attorney Gary Van Domelen