Akron, Ohio, March 27, 2009 - Professor Graeme Dinwoodie from Chicago-Kent College of Law will visit The University of Akron School of Law on Monday, April 6 at 5 p.m. as part of the annual Albert and Vern Oldham Intellectual Property Law lecture series. The lecture, which is free and open to the public, will take place at the UA School of Law, 150 University Ave., Room 151. A reception will immediately follow.
Dinwoodie's lecture, titled "Trademarks as Keywords," will address issues such as does a company that uses a competitor's trademark as a metatag or purchases another's mark as a search term violate U.S. trademark law? Also addressed will be whether search engines that require companies to link their ads to particular terms, offer software that results in pop-up ads when using certain search terms, or engage in so-called 'pay-for-priority' practices run afoul of the trademark laws.
Dinwoodie joined the Chicago-Kent faculty in 2000 from the University of Cincinnati College of Law, where he was a three-time recipient of the Goldman Prize for Excellence in Teaching.
In 2008, Dinwoodie received the Pattishall Medal for Teaching Excellence in the field of trademarks and trade identity law - awarded only once every four years - from the International Trademark Association. He also holds a chair in Intellectual Property Law at the University of London, Queen Mary College. He is presently the chair of the Intellectual Property Section of the Association of American Law Schools.
Dinwoodie holds a First Class Honors LL.B. degree in Private Law from the University of Glasgow, an LL.M. from Harvard Law School, and a J.S.D. from Columbia Law School. He was the Burton Fellow in residence at Columbia Law School for 1988-89, working in the field of intellectual property law, and a John F. Kennedy Scholar at Harvard Law School for 1987-88.
He is the author of the casebooks International Intellectual Property Law and Policy (with W. Hennessey and S. Perlmutter), International and Comparative Patent Law (with W. Hennessey and S. Perlmutter), and Trademarks and Unfair Competition: Law and Policy (with M. Janis). His articles on various aspects of intellectual property law have appeared in several leading law reviews.
Dinwoodie has served as a consultant to the World Intellectual Property Organization on matters of private international law, to UNCTAD on traditional knowledge questions, and as an advisor to the American Law Institute project on Jurisdiction and Recognition of Judgments in Intellectual Property Matters.
The Albert and Vern Oldham Intellectual Property Law Endowment Fund was established at the UA School of Law by Edwin W. "Ned" Oldham, senior partner at the former Oldham & Oldham Co., L.P.A., now Hahn Loeser + Parks, Akron. Albert and Vern Oldham founded Oldham & Oldham, a patent law firm, in 1947. The fund is devoted to furthering the UA School of Law's mission in the area of intellectual property law. Ned Oldham sought to strengthen the teaching of patent, copyright and trademark law at the school and to focus on the importance of innovation and the entrepreneurial spirit that drives continued growth, progress and excellence in our community and nation.
The University of Akron School of Law promotes justice, the protection of individual liberty and the rule of law through commitment to excellence in teaching, scholarship and service. The law school features a nationally-recognized program in intellectual property, as well as one of four Constitutional Law Centers in the United States. To learn more, visit www.uakron.edu/law.
The University of Akron is the public research university for Northern Ohio. It is the only public university in Ohio with a science and engineering program ranked in the top five nationally by U.S. News & World Report. Serving 26,000 students, the university offers approximately 300 associate, bachelor's, master's, doctoral and law degree programs and 100 certificate programs at sites in Summit, Wayne, Medina and Holmes counties. For more information, visit www.uakron.edu.