Pitt Law School to Host 2008 Distinguished Lecture in Intellectual Property Law March 20

PITTSBURGH-The University of Pittsburgh School of Law will host the 2008 Distinguished Lecture in Intellectual Property Law featuring Jessica Litman, Pittsburgh native and professor at the University of Michigan School of Law, from 3 to 4:30 p.m. March 20 in the Barco Law Building's Teplitz Moot Court Room, 3900 Forbes Ave., Oakland. The event is free and open to the public.

Litman, one of the country's leading authorities on copyright law, will give a lecture titled "Copyright Reform." Her recent work focuses on copyright's fair use doctrine and its relationship to contemporary problems of "personal use." She teaches copyright law, trademark law, and Internet law.

Litman is the author of the book "Digital Copyright: Protecting Intellectual Property on the Internet "(Prometheus Books, 2000), paperback in 2006, and the coauthor with Jane Ginsburg and Mary Lou Kevlin of a casebook, "Trademarks and Unfair Competition Law: Cases and Materials" (Foundation Press, 2007).

After teaching for a number of years at Wayne State University in Detroit, Litman rejoined the Michigan law faculty in 2006, where she had taught from 1984 to 1990. She also has served as a visiting professor at New York University School of Law and at American University Washington College of Law.

A trustee of the Copyright Society of the USA, Litman also is a member of the Advisory Board for Public Knowledge, a Washington D.C.-based public advocacy organization, a member of the Intellectual Property and Internet Committee of the ACLU, and 2007 chair of the Section on Intellectual Property of the American Association of Law Schools.

Litman is part of a family of distinguished Pittsburgh attorneys. Her mother, Roslyn M. Litman (A&S '49, LAW '52), was named a 2008 Distinguished Alumni Fellow by the University Alumni Association and is an adjunct faculty member and on the Board of Visitors of Pitt's law school. Her brother, Harry P. Litman, is the former U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania.

This lecture has been approved by the Pennsylvania Continuing Legal Education (CLE) Board for one and one-half (1.5) hours of substantive credit. The cost for credit is $25, payable when registering at the door with a check to University of Pittsburgh School of Law. No preregistration is necessary. For further information regarding CLE, call 412-648-1305 or e-mail steffy@pitt.edu.

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