Roberta J. Morris

SPEECHES AND OTHER ACTIVITIES

Speeches and Activities Related to Patent and Copyright Law

• September 2010 (upcoming):  ICLE (Michigan) 3rd Annual IT Law Seminar:  The Supreme Court Decides Bilski
  
• April 2010:  Speaker, "The Richness and Poorness of the Rich Legacy (Written Description, Possession and Other Fables)," WSPLA/OPLA Meeting on April 16-18, 2010; handout; slides
• February 2010:  Commentator, Stanford Techology Law Review Symposium on PTO Reform, Stanford Law School
  
• January 2010: Welcome/Introduction of keynote session, Law.gov Workshop, Stanford Law School
• October 2009: Speaker, ICLE (Michigan)  2nd Annual Information Technology (IT) Law Seminar, "Patenting Business Methods and Software." (Written materials, as submitted to ICLE, are here.  Slides, including ARS data, are here.)
• September 2008: Speaker, Tech Transfer and Patent Law, Stanford University School of Medicine Genetics Department Retreat
• Fall 2006:  Founder, Women's Meeting on Patent Law (bimonthly lunch club)
• Spring 2004: Patent law expert witness, contract arbitration, Michigan
• April 2003:  Speaker, Saginaw Valley Patent Law Association, "Best Mode:  Thoughts on Eli Lilly v. Barr, and then some."  (Slides are available here.)
  
• September 2002: Guest Lecturer in Michigan Engineering Prof. Debasish Dutta's Mechanical Engineering 590 course on Global Product Realization, Ann Arbor (and webcast to Seoul, Korea; Berlin, Germany; and Oxford, England)
• April 2002: Keynote Speaker, Chi Epsilon Banquet, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
• February 2002: Featured Speaker, Practising Law Institute, "Patenting the New Business Model," New York City (also February 2001 (NYC), June 2000 (San Francisco) and February 2000 (NYC)).  Written materials are available on Westlaw, 609 PLI/Pat 95; cartoon ("The Perils of RISC Architecture") is here.
  
• October 2001: Guest Lecturer in Michigan Engineering Prof. Debasish Dutta's Mechanical Engineering 590 course on Global Product Realization, Ann Arbor (and webcast to Seoul, Korea and Oxford, England)
• March 2001: Featured Speaker, Advanced Computer and Internet Law Institute, Georgetown University Law Center, Washington, D.C. (Handout)
• December 2000: Panelist, CIO's Symposium: Copy 'RIGHTS' @ the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
• November 2000: Guest Lecturer in Michigan Engineering Prof. Debasish Dutta's Mechanical Engineering 590 course on Global Product Realization , AnnArbor (and webcast to Seoul, Korea and Delft, Holland)
• September 1998: Featured Speaker, Copyright Session, Intellectual Property Law Section of the State Bar of Michigan, Annual Meeting, Lansing, Michigan

Other Speeches and Activities

• June-July 2010(upcoming):  "Dolly," The Pear Avenue Theatre's production of Adam Bock's The Shaker Chair (Ann Kuchins, director), Mountain View, CA
  
• July 2009:  San Mateo County Board of Supervisors hearing on Palo Alto Way Crosswalk Removal:  speaker in opposition
• May 2009:  "Lady Wishfort," The Pear Avenue Theatre's production of Congreve's The Way of the World (Rebecca Ennals, director), Mountain View, CA (see reviews by Palo Alto Weekly , KQED and Palo Alto Daily News.
• October 2008:  "Emma," Northside Theatre Company's production of Joe DiPietro's Over the River and Through the Woods (Susannah Greenwood, director), San Jose, CA
• April 2008:  "Grandma Gellman," Theatreworks' production of Caroline, or Change, book and lyrics by Tony Kushner, music by Jeanine Tesori (Robert Kelley, director), Mountain View, CA
• February 2007:  San Mateo County Board of Supervisors hearing on Palo Alto Way Crosswalk Removal:  speaker in opposition
• Summer 2005: Coordinator, Michigan Law's Fawley Summer Supreme Court Series, Ann Arbor
• June 2003: Honorable Mention, Current Magazine's Fifth Annual Fiction and Poetry Contest, for "Crocuses" (poem)
• June 2002: Honorable Mention, Current Magazine's Fourth Annual Fiction and Poetry Contest, for "The Recycled Bridegroom" (short story)
• Fall 2001: Founder, Law and Histrionics Workshop, University of Michigan Law School (a short-lived experiment)
  
• June 1999: Honorable Mention, Current Magazine's First Annual Fiction and Poetry Contest, for "Clothes" (poem).
• June 1999: "Cookie," Ann Arbor Civic Theater's production of Rumors by Neil Simon, Ann Arbor

***

PUBLICATIONS

Publications related to Patent or Copyright Law

• April 2010:  Materials for WSPLA/OPLA talk  on Written Description, Ariad, etc. (see Speeches above)
  
• 2010 Blog postings on http://myunpublishedworks.blogspot.com
• April 2010 Great Quotes 01 - Dicta in the Federal Circuit, Lourie in Ariad v. Nichols in Railroad Dynamics
• March 2010 Examining Patentable Subject Matter [PTO Reform Ideas 02], thoughts inspired by the STLR Symposium
  
• March 2010 Introduction of series on STLR-inspired thoughts
  
• October 2009: Materials for 2nd Annual IT Seminar, ICLE (Michigan), "Patenting Software and Business Methods" (see Speeches for additional links)
  
• October 2009: Amicus Brief in Ariad Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. Eli Lilly and Company (Fed. Cir. No. 2008-1248) Brief in Support of Neither Party, Urging Attention to the Grammatical Structure and Words of 35 USC 112 P 1
• 2009 Blog postings on http://myunpublishedworks.blogspot.com
  
  • October 2009 An Urgent Letter and Time Sensitive Proposal to PTO Director David Kappos, concerning the [then] upcoming oral argument in Bilski v. Kappos and how it would be in the best interests of the Patent Office to have that argument NOT take place and to have the Supreme Court NOT rule on the 101 issue (patentable subject matter).
  • October 2009 Federico's Commentaries should be posted on uspto.gov
    
  • September 2009 "Mark Twain on Patents and Inventions":  David Kappos, new PTO Director, just quoted Twain on the need for good patent laws, and it reminded that my first encounter with that quotation had led me to the Autobiography of Mark Twain, and Mr. Clemens' personal experience as a venture capitalist.
  • February 2009 Application Form for Position of PTO Director ; a copy of the Application Form is also available here)
  • February 2009 Claim Construction and Burdens of Proof, concerning Kinetic Concepts v. Blue Sky, (Fed. Cir. 2/2/09) and pointing out that close questions of claim construction might be resolved better by considering the burden of proof for the issue which gives rise to the dispute over the meaning of claim language.
• April 2008, Amicus Brief filed with the Federal Circuit in In re Bilski, also available at 2008 WL 1842256, 2008 U.S. Fed. Cir. Briefs LEXIS 27 and 2007 U.S. Fed. Cir. Briefs 1130
• April 2007, "Thoughts on Patent-Bashing, Obviously", Intellectual Property Today.  Concerns KSR v. Teleflex, before the Supreme Court has ruled.
• 2007, A new blog for thoughts about patent law: http://myunpublishedworks.blogspot.com/
  • March 2007: "Forum Shopping and MedImmune, SanDisk, and patent DJs: Where is the F word in MedImmune and SanDisk?" [FORUM, as in forum shopping and choice of forum]
  <>May 2007: The Missing V-Word in KSR v. Teleflex : VACATED:  The Supreme Court does not care that vacated and reversed are not the same thing: on remand, even the Federal Circuit is confused about what they'd done
  
• 2005, Patent Law for Scientists and Engineers, Avery N. Goldstein, ed. Chapter 1, "Anatomy of a Patent," and Chapter 3, "Inventor Actions that can Jeopardize Patent Rights."
• March and May 2005, Comment in response to Copyright Office's Notice of Inquiry Concerning Orphan Works (70 FR 3739, 1/26/05),  http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/comments/OW0652-Morris.pdf , and Reply, http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/comments/reply/OWR0089-Morris.pdf.
• August 8, 2003, Letter to the Editor, The New Yorker. The letter comments on an article by James Surowiecki in the issue dated July 14&21, 2003, discussing business method patents.  Surowiecki states that "[State Street] did away with that principle [that] a business method was considered to be an idea ... and ideas of this sort were not patentable."  A longer version submitted on July 21 as a Department of Correction/Amplification article is here.
• Fall 2002, "International Jurisdiction and Enforcement of Judgments in the Era of Global Networks; Irrelevance of, Goals for, and Comments on the Current Proposals," with Jonathan Franklin, 77 Chi.-Kent L.Rev. 1213 (Symposium on Constructing International Intellectual Property Law: The Role of National Courts).
• June 2001, "An Open Letter to the Supreme Court Concerning Patent Law," Journal of the Patent and Trademark Office Society (83 JPTOS 438; errata 83 JPTOS 683).  For the whole article, click here.  For an all-ascii version of the passage from Warner-Jenkinson discussed in that article, click here.
  
• May 2001, "Some Data about Patents in Class 705", Intellectual Property Today.
• June 2000, Materials submitted for PLI Handbook, Patenting the New Business Model, "Business Method Patents: Old or New, Good or Bad?" (.doc version of  wp5.1 paper; conversion may lead to some weirdness and cartoon is not included in the .doc).  See Speeches, above.  The paper is also available on Westlaw at 609 PLI/Pat 95)
  
<>
• Spring 1996, "Whom Do You Trust," (a commentary on the Michigan Document Services case and educational fair use), co-author Johnathan A. Franklin, available at http://fairuse.stanford.edu/primary_materials/cases/michigan_document_services/oped.html .

Publications - Other (Law but not IP, or not Law at all)

• 2010 Blog Postings on myunpublishedworks2:
• May 2010 The Head-Smack Series
  
• May 2010  NE-NER-NIS (part 2) - LANGUAGE 02
  
• April 2010 LANGUAGE 01:  The Reticent/Reluctant Hesitation
  
• April 2010 The Start of Several Series
• March 2010 The True Story Behind the Hirschhorn Museum's Contest to Create Art from a Single Sheet of Paper
• March 2010 The Oscars and Oscar the Grouch: Footnote, Other people connect the two Oscars; the Oscars' relative ages
• March 2010 The Oscars Meet Oscar the Grouch, Part 2:  Great News about Bigelow, but. Thoughts on the Oscar for Kathryn Bigelow, and about women in IED units
• March 2010 Up: Against (Why I Ultimately Was Down on Up) , thoughts about the lack of roles for female actors in Up and other Pixar movies
• 2009 Blog Postings on myunpublishedworks2
  
• October 2009 "No Known End to the World" (short short science fiction story, written in 2006)
• September 2009 The Need for a Neuter Pronoun:  A Solution
  
• September 2009 Merit Needs A Publicist (a very short essay)
  
• September, 2009, on myunpublishedworks: Oral Argument on Citizens United v. FEC: didn't anybody point out that non-natural persons can't vote?
• January, 2009, The New York Times, Letter to the Editor, concerning  Bob Herbert, "Where the Money Is" (Jan. 12)
• November 2008, The New York Times, Letter to the Editor, concerning “Study Finds Many Doctors Often Give Placebos” (news article, Oct. 24)
• July 2006, "From Ann Arbor to Stanford: What I'll Miss and What I Won't," Ann Arbor Observer
• August 2002, "A Door to Nowhere," Ann Arbor Observer (concerning a vestigial door in the law school library's reading room)
• May 2001, "Where Else?" (poem), Dicta: The Law School Literary Journal, University of Michigan Law School
  
• December 2000, "A View from the Bridge," Ann Arbor Observer (concerning the new railings installed on the Huron Parkway Bridge)

***

Seminar in Scientific Evidence and Expert Testimony: Patent Litigation:   2006-present

Introduction to Intellectual Property: 2007

Courses Taught at Michigan Law, 1991-2005

Patent Law: 1991, 1993, 1995, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004

Protection of Technology (second half of semester): 1996

Copyright: 1993, 1994, 1995

Seminar in Advanced Patent Law: 1998-2003, 2005

Seminar in Internet Issues in Intellectual Property: 2001

Seminar in International Patents and Copyrights: 2003

Writing and Advocacy (Acting Director, Legal Writing Program): 1992-93

***

• Reading Tutor, Reading Partners, Belle Haven School, Ravenswood School District, Menlo Park
• Platelet/Blood Donor
• Poll Worker, San Mateo County
• Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders, P3 proofreader