The Center for Technology, Innovation & Competition

Over the past decade, technology law (including telecommunications and Internet law, patent, copyright and other forms of intellectual property) has emerged as one of the fastest growing areas of academic research and has played an increasingly important role in our economy and our society. Scholarship in these areas has also become increasingly innovative, integrating the insights of such varied disciplines as new theories of economics, positive political theory, personality theory, and social norms.

The Center for Technology, Innovation, and Competition is dedicated to promoting research into foundational frameworks that will shape the way policymakers think about technology-related issues in the future. CTIC is committed to providing fora to explore the full range of scholarly perspectives, particularly including competition policy and social welfare.

Penn is uniquely well suited to support such a mission. The Law School is home to many of the world's leading experts on intellectual property, Internet law, and technology policy. In addition, CTIC is able to draw on the expertise located in other areas of the University, including the Wharton School, the Annenberg School for Communication, and the School of Engineering and Applied Science.

Philadelphia is also home to a vibrant high-tech legal community as well as many of the world's leading technology companies. CTIC's close proximity to New York and Washington, DC, allows it to enjoy frequent visits from key industry players and policymakers.

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A note from the director… February 28, 2009 Our just-concluded conference on “Foundations of Intellectual Property Reform” co-sponsored with the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, brought together scholars such as Oren Bar Gill (New York University), Mark Lemley (Stanford University), Clarissa Long (Columbia University), Arti Rai (Duke University), and Henry Smith (Yale University) for presentations on topics including: “Intellectual Property Meets Administrative Law: Institutional Reform at the Patent and Trademark Office” “Addressing Patent Quality: The Theory, Practice, and Implications of the Way Patents Are Granted” “Intellectual Property and the New Institutional Economics” “Rethinking the Monopoly Model of Intellectual Property” “Intellectual Property and Social Norms” This conference is the latest example of the key role that CTIC at Penn is playing in promoting the scholarly study of technology policy. Penn Law is home to leading experts on intellectual property, Internet law, and technology policy, including Law Professors R. Polk Wagner, Gideon Parchomovsky and myself. Polk just completed a three-month visit to Japan conducting research on patent quality issues in conjunction with the Japanese Institute for Intellectual Property and the Japanese Patent Office. Gideon’s most recent work includes advocating the need for a comprehensive property theory and the need to introduce a value-oriented theory. I recently testified before subcommittees of the U.S. House of Representatives as well as before the Federal Communications Commission’s Public En Banc Hearing at Harvard Law School. In addition to course offerings on patent law, copyright, cybercrime, trademarks, privacy and more, we offer our students practical experience through Penn Law’s Entrepreneurship Legal Clinic and a class on the sovereignty of media that focuses on reform in the Arab Middle East. CTIC is also able to draw on the nearby expertise of Penn’s Wharton School, Annenberg School for Communication, and School of Engineering and Applied Science. In all, 10 faculty members from elsewhere at Penn are affiliated with CTIC. CTIC’s first year (2007-08) was a smashing success. Our inaugural workshop series included presentations by a half-dozen leading thinkers. The capstone of the year was our conference on “The Breakup of AT&T: A Twenty-Five Year Retrospective.” That April 2008 conference was described as the most distinguished group of telecommunications scholars ever brought together in a single room. It included an opening panel featuring Alfred Kahn, Roger Noll, and Paul MacAvoy, a keynote address by the Honorable Richard Posner, and presentations by two former FCC Commissioners, six former FCC chief economists, four former chief economists from the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division or Federal Trade Commission, and many others of note. This year, our programming includes another terrific group of workshop speakers as well as a December 2, 2008 address by Federal Communications Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate. On behalf of Polk Wagner, Gideon Parchomovsky, and all of our secondary, affiliated and adjunct faculty, I invite you to contact us with suggestions. If you would like to receive news about CTIC, please register for our e-mail distribution list. Best,

Christopher S. Yoo Professor of Law and Communication Founding Director, Center for Technology, Innovation, and Competition