This Friday (10/5) the Iowa College of Law will host the 2018 Iowa Law Review symposium, Administering Patent Law. The symposium focuses on the intersection of patent and administrative law, a juncture that has become particularly salient in recent years and is poised to become even more so with the Supreme Court’s continuing interest in both patent and administrative law.

Leading scholars, will address the fundamental question of how patent law was, is, and should be administered, providing insights into the patent office’s historical origins, its place in the modern administrative state, and recommendations for its future evolution. Panels include Constitutional Constraints on Administrative Innovation, How the Patent Office Makes Decisions, Administrative Innovations at the PTO, and The Balance of Power Between the PTO and the Courts.

Here is the full schedule:

9:00 AM     WELCOMING REMARKS

Kevin Washburn, Dean of the University of Iowa College of Law

Jason Rantanen, Director of the Innovation, Business & Law Program

Daniel Moeller, Editor in Chief of the Iowa Law Review

9:15 AM     PANEL 1: CONSTITUTIONAL CONSTRAINTS ON ADMINISTRATIVE INNOVATION

John Golden, University of Texas at Austin School of Law: PTO Panel Stacking: Unblessed by the Federal Circuit and Likely Unconstitutional

Jonathan Masur, University of Chicago Law School: Institutional Design and the Nature of Patents

Adam Mossoff, Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason: Statutes, Common-Law Rights, and the Mistaken Classification of Patents as Public Rights

Tejas Narechania, Berkeley Law at University of California: Sovereign Immunity Before the PTAB

Christopher Walker, The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law: Constitutional Tensions in Agency Adjudication

11:15 AM     PANEL 2: HOW THE PATENT OFFICE MAKES DECISIONS

John Duffy, University of Virginia School of Law: Rational Ignorance vs. Reasoned Decisionmaking at the Patent Office

Jason Rantanen, University of Iowa College of Law: What Happens to PTO Decisions?

Melissa Wasserman, University of Texas at Austin School of Law: PTAB’s Consistency Enhancing Function (co-authored with Michael Frakes)

Stephen Yelderman, University of Notre Dame School of Law: Prior Art in Inter Partes Review

12:30 PM     LUNCH

1:45 PM     PANEL 3: ADMINISTRATIVE INNOVATIONS AT THE PTO

Colleen Chien, Santa Clara University School of Law: Coding Legal Code

Dmitry Karshtedt, George Washington Law School: Once Is Enough: Rediscovering Collateral Estoppel at the PTAB

Arti Rai, Duke University School of Law: AI at the Patent Office: Lessons for the Administrative State?

Saurabh Vishnubhakat, Texas A&M University School of Law: Renewed Efficiency in Administrative Patent Revocation

3:30 PM     PANEL 4: THE BALANCE OF POWER BETWEEN THE PTO AND THE COURTS

Rebecca Eisenberg, University of Michigan Law School: A Functional Approach to Judicial Review of PTAB Rulings on Mixed Questions of Law and Fact

Paul Gugliuzza, Boston University School of Law: Elite Patent Law

Sapna Kumar, University of Houston Law Center: Patent Law’s Balance of Power

Robert Merges, Berkely Law at University of California: The Patent Office and the Hamiltonian State

This event is co-sponsored by the Iowa Innovation, Business & Law Center. We’ll be live-streaming the symposium that day. You can find the full agenda (and the livestream link, once it is live) on the symposium website.