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copyright symposium honors justice breyerâs scholarship On November 4, 2010, GW Law was proud to host the Honorable Stephen G. Breyer of the U.S. Supreme Court for an all-day symposium dedicated to the 40th anniversary of then-Professor Breyerâs article âThe Uneasy Case for Copyright.â The symposium included four panels of law professors and economists from six universities in the United States and three in England, Germany, and Israel. The panelists presented papers on a variety of topics, including economic analysis, copyrightâs effect on particular industries, and historical and empirical perspectives. The papers will be published in a forthcoming issue of The George Washington Law Review. In his keynote address at lunch, Justice Breyer discussed how changing technology does and will affect the development of copyright law. Justice Breyer suggested that, despite rapid change, many new questions can be answered by looking deeply into the purpose of the copyright law and considering the economic and empirical evidence about the effect of
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Michael Abramowicz
Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen G. Breyer
various regimesâthe very approach that was suggested in the justiceâs 1970 law review article. Justice Breyerâs visit was especially meaningful for
the GW Law IP community because it was organized and run by Professor Robert Brauneis, co-director of the IP program and a former clerk for then-First Circuit Judge Breyer.
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rofessors Michael Abramowicz and John Duffy had articles accepted by the law reviews of Harvard, Yale, and Stanford. In particular, Harvard will publish Professor Abramowiczâs article âOrphan Business Methodsâ on constructing new intellectual property protections specifically to fit the needs of business. continued on page 7