Professor Nancy Rapoport to Speak at Bankruptcy Ethics Symposium

Nancy B. Rapoport is the Gordon Silver Professor of Law at the William S. Boyd School of Law.

On Nov. 21, she will be the keynote speaker at the Federal Bar Association's 11th Annual Bankruptcy Ethics Symposium in Los Angeles.

Professor Rapoport's specialties are bankruptcy ethics, ethics in governance, and the depiction of lawyers in popular culture. 

Professor Kay Kindred to Attend Uniform Law Commission Meeting

Kay Kindred is a Ralph Denton Professor of Law at the William S. Boyd School of Law.

On Nov. 20-23, she will travel to Washington, D.C. to participate in a Uniform Law Commission meeting. Professor Kindred is a commissioner with the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, also known as the Uniform Law Commission, representing Nevada. In this capacity, she serves as a member of the drafting committee responsible for developing a uniform law governing the recognition and enforcement of Canadian domestic violence orders within the states and territories of the United States.

Professor Kindred has participated in the drafting of three prior uniform acts in her capacity as commissioner.

Professor Kindred has published extensively in the areas of family law, children’s rights, and education law.

Professor Rebecca Scharf Quoted in Fast Company Article

Rebecca Scharf is an associate professor of law at the William S. Boyd School of Law.

On Oct. 30, she was quoted in a Fast Company article titled, "Nevada's Mission to Build the Detroit of Drones."

In the article, she said, "One of the important things we have to consider is how to protect information that comes from the data collected from drones.”

She continued, "When it comes to regulating drone use, they’d definitely have to look at urban areas very differently from other areas. If we had state legislation in place geared at protecting privacy, then we could have a real conversation about how people would be protected.”

Professor Scharf earned her J.D. in 1991 from Harvard Law School, where she served as an editor on the Journal on Legislation. Prior to coming to the Boyd School of Law, Professor Scharf worked as a senior attorney with the National Center for Law and Economic Justice (formerly known as the Welfare Law Center) in New York City, where she conducted class action impact litigation throughout the United States, primarily in the area of public benefits law.

Nevada IP Practitioners Share Their Expertise and Enthusiasm with Boyd Students

The most enriching environment for students is one that enables them to learn from both excellent academic faculty and highly experienced practitioners. Boyd students benefit even more when the practitioners are from Nevada and share their observations about practicing law from a Nevada viewpoint. This semester Boyd students benefited from two events that brought an outstanding group of intellectual property (“IP”) law practitioners to Boyd.

The first event, a panel discussion on October 7, 2014, featured three attorneys who practice in Las Vegas; they discussed career options available in the practice of IP law. W. West Allen, a partner at Lewis Rocca Rothgerber, spoke about his role in litigation and his role as adviser to companies on a wide variety of IP matters. Seaton J. Curran, an attorney with Howard & Howard, explained his role in prosecuting patents before the USPTO and foreign patent offices and advising inventors and companies on patent filing issues. Abiola Shobola, Intellectual Property Counsel at Aristocrat Technologies, Inc., discussed her experience as in-house counsel at a large corporation and her dealings with IP issues, including trademark licensing and Internet domain name matters.

The second event, a panel discussion on November 4, 2014, featured two attorneys practicing in Nevada who discussed the impact of recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions on the general practice of IP law, and IP law practice in Nevada in particular. Robert C. Ryan, a partner at the Holland & Hart Reno office, shared his story of personal involvement in the seminal U.S. Supreme Court case of Parker v. Flook, which he worked on while he was a law student, and discussed in detail the Court’s June 2014 decision in Alice v. CLS Bank, which has had a profound effect on patent applicants seeking to protect their computer-implemented inventions. John Brown, Of Counsel at Holland & Hart’s Las Vegas office, offered his view as an attorney who advises companies throughout their business cycles on a variety of issues that often include IP or intersect with IP matters. Students learned how the uncertainty about the effects of recent U.S. Supreme Court IP decisions affects startups, established businesses, and investors who might consider investing in IP-focused ventures.

The two events were co-organized by Associate Professor Marketa Trimble, an IP faculty member at Boyd, and the Boyd Career Development Office.

Professors LaFrance and Trimble Present at the 3rd Annual U.S.-China IP Conference

(From left) Professors Mary LaFrance and Marketa Trimble

On November 7, 2014, Professor Mary LaFrance and Associate Professor Marketa Trimble joined other IP law scholars at the 3rd Annual U.S.-China IP Conference at Loyola Law School, Los Angeles. The event was organized by Berkeley Law School’s Center for Law & Technology, Loyola Law School, and Renmin University of China. This year’s conference focused on the following five topics: (1) revisions to the copyright laws of the United States and China; (2) IP issues related to the entertainment industry; (3) the role of specialized IP courts; (4) patent and trade secrets legislation and protection; and (5) challenges and strategies in cross-border IP enforcement.

The Conference brought together senior policymakers, academics, and international practitioners from both the United States and China. Among the many prominent speakers were the following IP law experts:

• Stacey Byrnes, Senior Vice President of NBC Universal/Universal Studios
• Colleen V. Chien of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
• Liu Chuntian, Dean of Renmin University IP Academy
• Mark Cohen of the USPTO
• Professor Terry Fischer of Harvard Law School
• Professor Robert Merges of Berkeley Law School
• Professor David Nimmer of UCLA School of Law
• Liu Ping of the Music Copyright Society of China
• Professor Zhang Ping of Peking University Law School
• Professor Seagull Song of Loyola Law School, Los Angeles
• Maria Strong of the U.S. Copyright Office
• Peter Yu of Drake Law School

Professor La France was invited to present “The Future of Performers’ Rights.” In her presentation she gave an overview of the current state of performers’ rights from the international law and comparative law perspectives. She then detailed the situation in the United States and explained how current U.S. law protects the moral and economic rights of performers. She concluded with the main features of the 1996 WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty and the 2012 WIPO Beijing Treaty on Audiovisual Performances, and by identifying how U.S. law might need to be amended to reflect U.S. obligations in the international treaties.

Professor Trimble was invited to participate in the panel discussion “Challenges and Strategies in Cross-Border IP Enforcement.” Her co-panelists were three practitioners from large international law firms, two Chinese academics, and a USPTO official. In the discussion Professor Trimble commented on the practical limitations of customs measures designed to stop infringing goods at country borders; she pointed out the high volume of goods coming through centralized points of entry such as the Port of Hamburg, and the limited resources of customs offices. Countries’ court proceedings should provide legal certainty and due process, and Professor Trimble emphasized the need for finality in cross-border IP enforcement, as shown in recent complex cross-border IP cases such as Microsoft Corp. v. Motorola, Inc. Professor Trimble also reported briefly on the activities of the International Law Association’s Committee on Intellectual Property and Private International Law, on which she serves.

Professor Ruben Garcia Co-authors Letter on Behalf of SALT, Mentioned in New York Law Journal

Ruben J. Garcia is a Professor of Law at the William S. Boyd School of Law.

On Nov. 5, a letter he co-authored on behalf of the Society of American Law Teachers (SALT) was mentioned in a New York Law Journal article titled, "Lippman to Meet With Deans About Bar Exam Proposal."

Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman of the New York Court of Appeals has proposed to change New York's state bar exam to include more elements from the nationally standardized Uniform Bar Examination.

On behalf of SALT, co-presidents Professor Garcia and Olympia Duhart wrote the following in a letter to the New York State Board of Law Examiners: " ... we urge the Court of Appeals to delay implementation until there has been an opportunity to seriously assess the impact of this exam on all students and, more particularly, to assess whether or not its adoption would exacerbate the persistent disparate impact of the bar exam on racial and ethnic minorities."

A recognized expert in the field of labor and employment law, Garcia teaches Labor Law, Employment Law, Constitutional Law, and Professional Responsibility at the Boyd School of Law. He has been quoted in the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Las Vegas Review-Journal, among others, and has appeared on national and local radio and television programs.