Does Intellectual Property Support or Inhibit Individual Freedom and Creativity?

Release date: March 13, 2008 |

The average wonder drug now costs almost a billion dollars to bring to market — a risk pharmaceutical companies would not consider without the legal protection of their intellectual property. The exhaustive process of securing a patent, however, makes the cost of these life-saving therapies prohibitive for much of the world’s population and deprives the originator of potential markets. Who wins? Who loses? 

Jim Pooley, an author, teacher, and practicing intellectual property lawyer, will discuss such complicated issues at a lecture titled “Does Intellectual Property Support or Inhibit Individual Freedom and Creativity?” on Thursday, March 13, at 7:30 p.m. in Buchner Hall of Goucher College’s Alumnae/i House. This event is free and open to the public.

Pooley is a partner in the litigation department of the Palo Alto, California, office of Morrison & Foerster LLP. He specializes in the litigation and trial of patent, trade secret, copyright, and technology-related commercial litigation in state and federal courts and before the International Trade Commission.

A leading patent law expert, Pooley has practiced in Silicon Valley since 1973, establishing a national reputation as trial counsel in some of the most difficult and high-visibility cases involving intellectual property. His successful patent infringement defense of Adobe Systems was recognized by the National Law Journal as the only intellectual property case among its Top Defense Verdicts of 1997. A record settlement for ESS Technology in a software copyright case led to his being honored as a 2003 Lawyer of the Year by California Lawyer Magazine. Pooley has extensive experience in arbitration and mediation, both as advocate and neutral.

Pooley is author of the highly regarded treatise Trade Secrets and many other professional publications in the field of intellectual property. He is president of National Inventors Hall of Fame and of the American Intellectual Property Law Association. He teaches as an adjunct professor of law at the University of California’s Boalt Hall School of Law. He is a Fellow of the California Council on Science and Technology, a member of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Intellectual Property Rights, and a member of the Northern District of California committee on pattern jury instructions for patent cases.

Pooley graduated from Columbia School of Law as a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and holds a bachelor of arts, with honors, from Lafayette College.

Media Contact Kristen Keener Media Relations Director kristen.keener@goucher.edu 410-337-6316