This week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments by teleconference, allowing the public to listen in, in real time, for the first time in history. On Monday, the Court heard United States Patent and Trademark Office v. Booking.com—a case about whether Booking.com can trademark its name. Immediately following the argument, host Jeffrey Rosen was joined by three experts who filed briefs on different sides of the case—Corynne McSherry of Electronic Frontier Foundation, professor Rebecca Tushnet of Harvard Law School, and Margaret Duncan of Loyola University Chicago School of Law—to recap the argument, explain the case, and reflect on a historic moment for the Court. The National Constitution Center collaborated with C-SPAN to broadcast this conversation live.
The National Constitution Center recapped all of the arguments heard this past week live on C-SPAN. You can watch the rest of those recaps on our YouTube channel at YouTube.com/constitutioncenter. The Supreme Court will hear additional arguments next Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, starting at 10 a.m. EDT, and then Jeff will be back on C-SPAN to recap them with some of the leading experts involved in the cases. So please tune in!
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PARTICIPANTS
Corynne McSherry is the Legal Director at Electronic Frontier Foundation, specializing in intellectual property, open access, and free speech issues. In 2015 she was named one of California's Top Entertainment Lawyers and she was also named AmLaw's "Litigator of the Week" for her work on Lenz v. Universal. Her policy work includes leading EFF’s effort to fix copyright (including the successful effort to shut down the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA), promote net neutrality, and promote best practices for online expression. She comments regularly on digital rights issues and has been quoted in a variety of outlets, including NPR, CBS News, Fox News, The New York Times, Billboard, The Wall Street Journal, and Rolling Stone.
Rebecca Tushnet is Frank Stanton Professor of the First Amendment at Harvard Law School. She previously practiced intellectual property law at Debevoise & Plimpton before beginning teaching. Her work currently focuses on copyright, trademark and false advertising law. Her blog, at tushnet.blogspot.com, has been on the ABA’s Blawg 100 list of top legal blogs for the past three years. Professor Tushnet helped found the Organization for Transformative Works, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting and promoting fanworks, and currently volunteers on its legal committee. Her work has appeared in a variety of publications including the Harvard Law Review and the Yale Law Journal.
Margaret Duncan is an Adjunct Professor at Loyola University Chicago School of Law, where she currently teaches Patent Law. Previously, she practiced at McDermott Will & Emery for 28 years, including as a partner in the Intellectual Property practice group, where she was head of the Chicago IP practice for 12 years. She focused her practice on all aspects of intellectual property law, including patent, trademark, trade secret and copyright protection, litigation and transactions. She has been consistently ranked by Best Lawyers, Chambers USA and World Trademark Review as a leading lawyer in IP law. In 2018, Leading Lawyers magazine listed her in the Top 10 IP attorneys in Illinois.
Jeffrey Rosen is the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization devoted to educating the public about the U.S. Constitution. Rosen is also professor of law at The George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic.
This episode was engineered by Greg Scheckler and Jackie McDermott, its produver. Research was provided by Robert Black and Lana Ulrich.
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