Congratulations to the 2013 Jenkins Honors Moot Court Competition Winners

Congratulations to the winners of the 2013 Jenkins Honors Moot Court Competition, Robert Steele and Kerri Puig. Congratulations also go to finalists Brittany Kachingwe and Paul Jonas.

Robert Steele won the Ramon A. Klitzke Prize for Best Oralist. Robert Steele and Kerri Puig won the Franz C. Eschweiler Prize for Best Brief.

The competitors argued before a packed Appellate Courtroom.  Presiding over the final round were Hon. William B. Traxler, Jr., Hon. William M. Conley, and Hon. Sara L. Darrow.

Many thanks to the judges and competitors for their hard work, enthusiasm, and sportsmanship in all the rounds of competition, as well as to the moot court executive board and Law School administration and staff for their work in putting on the event. Special thanks to Dean Kearney for his support of the competition.

Students are selected to participate in the competition based on their success in the fall Appellate Writing and Advocacy class at the Law School.

 

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United States Supreme Court Cites the Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review

Law professors, like everyone else, have good days and less good days. Then, sometimes, law professors have special days. In these days, something truly unique happens, something that makes law professors especially grateful for their roles as mentors and educators. This past week, I had probably one of the most special days in my law professor career, and it was not about getting tenure, getting promoted or the like (all very special days I can promise!). It was about the success of a student I had the privilege to mentor and supervise, who was one of my very best students, and who made me so very proud. So what happened? An academic dream: the Supreme Court of the United States cited the comment that my former student Lina Monten wrote in 2005, and that we published in the Marquette Intellectual Property Review.

Here is a little more “technical” background. The Supreme Court recently issued its opinion in Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, a closely-watched copyright case concerning the issue of whether the “first sale” doctrine of copyright law applies to imported works. Justice Breyer wrote the majority opinion holding that it does, and Justice Ginsburg wrote a dissent (on behalf of herself and Justices Scalia and Kennedy) arguing that it does not. In the course of her dissent, Justice Ginsburg argued that the United States has long taken the position in international negotiations that copyright owners should have the right to prevent importation of copies of their works that they manufactured and sold in another country. (Slip op. at 20-21.) In support of her argument, Justice Ginsburg cited two items, one of which was the comment published in the Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review, written by then-student, now-Marquette Lawyer Lina M. Montén, entitled The Inconsistency Between Section 301 and TRIPS: Counterproductive With Respect to the Future of International Protection of Intellectual Property Rights? (9 Marq. Intellectual Property L. Rev. 387 (2005)). I supervised the comments, which started as a paper that Lina wrote for the International Business Transaction class that I taught during spring 2005. 

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Marquette Pride

I wanted to start by saying thank you for having me as a student blogger for the last month of this school year. I look forward to writing some thought provoking—yet fun—posts. That being said, I wanted to start with a short post of thanks and congratulations to a certain group of individuals that might not be directly related to “the law,” but still deserve some recognition for their achievements this year. Cheers to you, Coach Buzz Williams and the Marquette men’s basketball team. Wooohoo! What a season.

Now, I understand as law students that not everyone loves basketball or even Marquette for that matter. Everyone has their own interests and fun activities outside the reading and outlining we do daily (ahh, “weekly” sounds more accurate for myself). Additionally, I know everyone went to excellent undergraduate schools and most of you have strong ties to their sports programs. That being said, give credit where credit is due. As Marquette Law Students we still function as members of the Marquette student body, and therefore, should be proud of what the men’s basketball team did this season.

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