PROFESSOR EMILY MICHIKO MORRIS SPEAKS AT 2019 EUROPEAN IP CONFERENCE IN SWITZERLAND
September 2019 — Professor Emily Michiko Morris, who is Visiting Associate Professor of Law and Director of Non-J.D. Programs at Penn State Dickinson Law, recently had an opportunity to present her scholarship on unregistered patent rights at the 2019 Annual Conference of the European Policy for Intellectual Property, in Zurich, Switzerland. Professor Morris was selected to join international legal scholars, economists, jurists, students, and others at the conference on “The Future of IP.”
She spoke on the gender disparities that still plague modern-day patent systems and how a system of unregistered — or automatic — patent rights could help women inventors. This year’s conference, hosted by L'Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH) Zürich, also featured presentations on artificial intelligence, pharmaceuticals, online piracy, and many other topics within the context of intellectual property law.
Professor Emily Michiko Morris is a Visiting Associate Professor and Director of Non-J.D. Programs at Penn State Dickinson Law. She is a scholar and experienced teacher specializing in patent law, particularly as it relates to biotechnology and university research, and is an expert on intellectual property and regulatory issues related to the pharmaceutical industry. Professor Morris also focuses on comparative law and comparative intellectual property law. As Director of Non-J.D. Programs, she oversees Dickinson Law’s LL.M. program, as well as developing and overseeing its S.J.D. and M.S.L. programs. Professor Morris has written a number of articles and book chapters on patentable subject matter, the Hatch-Waxman Act, and the Bayh-Dole Act, as well as on the effects of patent claim construction and scope on incentives and innovation. Her articles have been published in leading journals, such as the Connecticut Law Review, the Stanford Technology Law Review, and the Harvard Journal of Gender and Law. She is the recipient of numerous grants and awards, including a three-year, $250,000 fellowship as an Eastern Scholar at the Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, where she lived and worked for a year as a visiting professor. She has been invited to speak at conferences and teach at universities all over the world, including China, Korea, Israel, Switzerland, and Vietnam. Her experience before joining Penn State Dickinson Law includes a clerkship with the Honorable Bruce M. Selya on the First Circuit Court of Appeals, working in the Issue and Appeals Practice Group for the D.C. office of Jones Day, and working at the University of Maine School of Law, the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law, and Chicago-Kent College of Law, as well as working as an Adjunct Assistant Professor and Humphrey Fellow in Law and Economic Policy at the John M. Olin Center for Law and Economics, University of Michigan Law School.