S.1835 Proposed Legislation Submitted by Sen. Leahy on October 29, 1999 (Documents in PDF format) Introduction   The Bill   Section By Section Summary

THE CONSTITUTIONAL DILEMMA POSED BY STATE INFRINGEMENT OF FEDERAL INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS A Roundtable Discussion Considering Florida Prepaid v. College Savings Bank Monday, October 11, 1999 12:30 to 2:00 Booth Auditorium, Boalt Hall School of Law, UC Berkeley In June 1999, the Supreme Court took many by surprise in Florida Prepaid v. College Savings Bank, which held that states cannot be sued in federal court for patent infringement. This unprecedented, groundbreaking decision raises many questions. Do states have any obligation to observe patent and copyright protection? Is Congress powerless to act? If not, what must Congress do to allow owners to enforce their intellectual property against a state? The Florida Prepaid decision deserves careful study to determine its implications for intellectual property law. The Berkeley Center for Law & Technology and the Berkeley Technology Law Journal are convened a roundtable discussion to accomplish just that. Panelists included: Simon Steel, Special Counsel for Global Competition at the Federal Trade Commission, and a former law clerk to Justice O'Connor Eugene Volokh, Acting Professor of Law, UCLA Law School, and former law clerk to Justice O'Connor, Edwin H. Wheeler, Partner, Howrey & Simon, Menlo Park, CA The panel was moderated by Professor Pamela Samuelson, professor of law and information management, UC Berkeley. Roundtable participants considered remedies, including injunctions, that might be available under existing state and federal law, the political reaction in Washington, and how Congress might be able to use takings law to ensure that state governments respect federal intellectual property rights. For more information, please contact: Larry Trask Berkeley Center for Law & Technology 510-642-8073 ltrask@law.berkeley.edu