Founding-Era Translations of the Progress Clause

Before its ratification, the U.S. Constitution was translated for the German- and Dutch-speaking populations of Pennsylvania and New York, but little attention has been paid to these translations until now. In Founding-Era Translations of the United States Constitution, Christina Mulligan, Michael Douma, Hans Lind, and Brian Quinn analyze how these translations might aid interpretation of the Constitution today.

Student Writing Competitions

Guest post by Professor Michael Risch (Villanova University).

I’d like to thank Lisa and Camilla for the opportunity to write a short guest post. Ostensibly, this post is about the importance of writing competitions. If you are a professor, encourage your students to take part! If you are a student, don’t be afraid to submit your work. The advantages can include money, publication, and—at the very least—the satisfaction of working toward a scholarly goal.

Lemley & Miller: Judges Who Sit by Designation Less Likely To Be Reversed by Fed. Cir.

I'm thrilled to be here! Lisa’s list of non-faculty presenters at IPSC prompted me to check out a nifty new paper by Mark Lemley and Shawn Miller, demonstrating that the Federal Circuit reverses claim constructions far less frequently when the district judge below previously sat by designation in a claim construction appeal.

Introducing New Blogger: Maggie Wittlin

I am thrilled to welcome Maggie Wittlin as a new Written Description blogger. After graduating from Yale Law School, Maggie clerked on the District of Connecticut and Second Circuit and worked at Patterson Belknap, where she focused on patent litigation. She just started as an Associate in Law at Columbia Law School. Her research focuses on judge and juror decisionmaking as well as law and psychology/behavioral sciences, including attempts to explain affinity and antipathy toward patents. I look forward to reading her thoughts on new IP scholarship that catches her eye!

Non-Faculty Presenters at IPSC

The annual IP Scholars Conference is this week at Berkeley, and it includes over 150 presenters and up to six parallel tracks of presentations. The conference includes talks by Chief Judge Diane Wood of the 7th Circuit, Chief Judge Alex Kozinski of the 9th Circuit, Shira Perlmutter of the PTO, and Colleen Chien of the OSTP, as well as an impressive array of academics. But one of the goals of this blog is to highlight the work of less "famous" scholars, so here are some of the works by non-faculty presenters that I noticed (check the speaker list for links to their full abstracts or papers):