The Penn Intellectual Property Group (PIPG) was formed in the Fall of 2001 when a group of like-minded law students met at an informal meeting to see if there was student interest in starting an intellectual property (IP) law journal at Penn Law. The first meeting garnered more than 70 participants and was joined by Professor Polk Wagner. It was clear there was definite interest in IP within the walls of Penn Law. The overwhelming audience members were 1L's.

From this meeting, several people took the initiative and formed the Intellectual Property Publication Focus Group. That organization elected a three-member executive board composed of Toby D. Hain (Executive Officer), Kyle Compton (Vice Executive), and Tina Fahmy (Secretary Treasurer). The group was divided into about six committees; all aimed at trying to establish an IP journal. Professor Wagner served as the fledgling organization's faculty advisor.

Late in the fall semester, the group sent their faculty advisor to Dean Fitts to determine what it would take to establish a new journal. The message was pretty clear: another traditional paper journal was out of the question. The group had to rely on less expensive publishing methods and innovative ideas for the journal content and presentation in order for the group to have a shot a establishing a new journal. The meeting was the launching point for the new direction of the organization.

The group adopted its new and current name, the Penn Intellectual Property Group. The change was not in name only but in PIPG's much broader mission and interests. The new focus was not just establishing a journal but fostering IP at Penn Law, the University at large, and the Philadelphia community including law firms, IP-related entities, and area law schools.

New projects were added to the group's goals. The first of these was a series of panel discussions that would introduce PIPG to the Law School. Three panels were planned for the spring semester and are currently under way.

The first panel was about careers entitled A Day in the Life: Intellectual Property Law in Practice. Student chairs charged with setting up the panel were Tristan Sorah-Reyes and Jelani Lawson. Moderated by Professor Wagner, the panel included Kevin Cronin, a partner at Blank Rome (Philadelphia), Herb Schwartz, partner at Fish & Neave (NY) and Proffessor of Law at Penn, and Joan Switzer, 2nd Vice President for Bristol-Myers Squibb Company. Over 50 students packed Silverman Hall for the event. Each member of the panel shared five to ten minutes about their daily professional lives followed by questions from the audience. The diversity of the panel was an asset, exposing the audience to a broad mixture of business-oriented technology transfer matters, corporate patent counseling, and IP litigation.

Intellectual Property & Life Sciences: Upstream Research to Downstream Product was the second installment in PIPG's spring panel series. Traci Quigley and Kyle Compton chaired this event that was moderated by one of Penn Law's newest additions to the faculty, Professor Arti Rai. The panelists discussed how IP rights affect the transformation of scientific research into bio-pharmacological products and successful businesses. Once again, the diversity of the panel was extraordinary. Panelists were Kenneth J. Dow, Assistant Patent Counsel at Johnson & Johnson & VP for Patent Law at Centocor, Inc.; Edward T. Lenz, of Counsel in the IP Practice Group at Morgan Lewis, former SVP and General Counsel-US at SmithKline Beecham; Stephen M. Sammut, Venture Partner at Burill & Co.; and Robert W. Stevenson, VP for IP at Cell Pathways, Inc.

This panel saw a tremendous growth in the interest of PIPG's activities. The Levy Conference Center housed nearly 100 audience members that came to see the panel. The Penn Biotechnology Group, the Institute for Law and Economics, and the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly helped sponsor the panel through monetary and advertising support, which PIPG gratefully acknowledges. The audience was composed of individuals from the Law School, Wharton, physicians and researchers from the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, the Philadelphia law community, and various others at Penn.

The final panel is tentatively scheduled for Wednesday, March 27, and the topic will be Arts and Entertainment in Intellectual Property Law. Grace Koh, Claudia Vetesi, and David Goldman are co-chairs for the panel. While PIPG has not acquired a full complement of panelists, current panelists include Corey Field, Associate at Ballard Spahr; Michael J. Remington, Partner at Drinker Biddle; John Kettle, Professor at Rutgers Law School; and R. Bruce Rich, Partner at Weil Gotshal (NY).

Mr. Field, an associate in the litigation department and member of the Ballard's Intellectual Property Group, concentrates his practice in copyright and entertainment law and has extensive experience in the music publishing and Internet industries. Mr. Remington has expertise in photographic industries, performing arts rights for songwriters and music publishers, media, publishing, and computer software. Mr. Kettle's interests are in right of publicity, entertainment, publishing, and arts. Mr. Rich is head of the nation's pre-eminent group that represents broadcast and cable television and other entities from the music world in their music license relationships with music performing rights organizations.

Beyond the panels, PIPG is planning for the long term future of the organization. Several areas are being examined; a few of these are discussed here. The main goal is to enhance the IP offerings and interest within the Law School and Philadelphia. Ideally, we would like to couple our efforts with those of several schools and departments at Penn such as Wharton, Annenberg, the medical school, and other graduate programs.

One project is to maintain an extensive web site that would serve as a clearinghouse and database for IP information. One section of the site might be reserved for a journal for which PIPG is currently drafting a proposal to Dean Fitts. Another endeavor we are excited about is a national IP symposium. Here, PIPG would invite the top experts from across the country to speak. The proceedings could then be easily and cheaply published via the proposed electronic journal. During the symposium, the talks could be simulcast over the web, and perhaps real time questions from across the country could be answered by the speakers.

In the short term, to get the website underway, our thoughts include an interactive online section where students, practitioners, faculty, and members of the judiciary post comments regarding any aspect of IP, and the site would be a semi-moderated discussion forum.

To foster student experiences in IP, we are also thinking about establishing an IP clinic where students volunteer at firms, start-ups, and businesses around Philadelphia. The students, under attorney supervision, would help in patent prosecution, IP litigation, copyright protection, and other related matters.

As mentioned previously, PIPG is a new organization comprised predominately of 1L's. We have made positive inroads in a short time, are optimistically looking towards the coming years, and encourage any feedback from members of Penn Law as well as other individuals.