Conference on Intellectual Property - Deadline Extended to March 6

The original deadline for this conference was February 15, as we noted previously.

The Inaugural
Conference on Intellectual Property (CIP)
June 12-13th 2009
Iona College in New Rochelle, NY

The inaugural Conference on Intellectual Property (CIP) will be held on June 12-13th 2009 at Iona College in New Rochelle, NY, and will include keynote addresses by Laura M. Quilter, M.L.S., J.D. and painter Joy Garnett.

Whether it be the submission of student papers to plagiarism-detecting websites, the marketing of a movie that chronicles the challenges of a windshield wiper inventor, or the latest debates over the application of nonobvious intention, issues involving intellectual property in the academic, economic, legal, and technological fields challenge the very notion of ownership: what we own, how we own, and who may claim ownership. The purpose of this conference is to explore intellectual property, in a cross-disciplinary context, as both a concept and a reality relating to the professional fields whose concerns intersect in understanding its essence and implications.

We invite papers and panels dealing with any and all aspects of intellectual property, from the origins of eighteenth-century literary property debates to the viability and ethics of plagiarism and plagiarism detection, from the economic impact of patents to the technological advances that may make intellectual property obsolete. We especially encourage papers/panels that embrace a multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary approach.

CIP papers and/or abstracts will be included in a conference proceedings, and selected essays may be published in a proposed collection for a peer-reviewed press.

Papers/Panel abstracts should be submitted by March 6th, 2009 to Dr. Amy Stackhouse at astackhouse@iona.edu or Dr. Dean Defino at ddefino@iona.edu. We look forward to a fruitful and collegial experience. For more information, please see the conference website.

Keynote Speakers:

Laura Quilter is an attorney and researcher in technology and information law and policy. Laura's research and practice particularly focuses on the rights of information users, including consumers, libraries, creators, and scientists, and she regularly speaks and writes on these matters. She earned her law degree from Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California, Berkeley, in 2003, and her library science degree from the University of Kentucky in 1993. http://lquilter.net/professional/briefbio.html - http://lquilter.net/index.php

Painter Joy Garnett appropriates news and documentary photographs from newspapers, internet and other media, and re-invents them as paintings. Her work mines the tensions between the open-ended narratives of art, and ubiquitous media representations of real-life events. Ms. Garnett's work has been exhibited in museums and galleries around the world, including the Whitney Museum of American Art in NYC, the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C., and the Witte Zaal in Ghent, Belgium, and reproduced in numerous publications, from Harper's to Cabinet magazine. In 2004, she was awarded a grant by the Anonymous Was a Woman foundation, and she currently serves as Arts Editor for Cultural Politics, a refereed journal published by Berg in Oxford, UK. http://www.firstpulseprojects.com/joy.html

Image credit: Joy Garnett - "Molotov" - 2003 - oil on canvas - 60 x 70 inches. © 2003 Joy Garnett

CFP: Conference on Intellectual Property (Iona College, NY, June 12-13, 2009; Deadline Feb. 15, 2009)

Not a comics-specific conference, but definitely of interest to comics scholars. As I can attest first-hand, overly strict interpretations of IP rights can sometimes hinder publication of academic articles about comic art.

The Inaugural
Conference on Intellectual Property (CIP)
June 12-13th 2009
Iona College in New Rochelle, NY
Keynote addresses by
Laura M. Quilter, M.L.S., J.D. and painter Joy Garnett

Whether as a factor in the economics of book production and authorial contracts, the reason and rationale behind the editing of texts, or the legislative decision that shaped the modern book trade, intellectual property as developed in the academic, economic, legal, and technological fields challenges the very notion of the book: what it is, how it is made, and who determines its history. It simultaneously challenges the very notion of ownership: what we own, how we own, and who may claim ownership. The purpose of this conference is to explore intellectual property, in a cross-disciplinary context, as both a concept and a reality relating to the professional fields whose concerns intersect in understanding its essence and implications.

We invite papers and panels dealing with any and all aspects of intellectual property, from the origins of eighteenth-century literary property debates to the viability and ethics of plagiarism and plagiarism detection, from the economic impact of patents to the technological advances that may make intellectual property obsolete. We especially encourage papers/panels that embrace a multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary approach.

CIP papers and/or abstracts will be included in a conference proceedings, and selected essays may be published in a proposed collection for a peer-reviewed press.

Papers/Panel abstracts should be submitted by February 5th, 2009 to Dr. Amy Stackhouse at astackhouse [at] iona.edu or Dr. Dean Defino at ddefino [at] iona.edu. We look forward to a fruitful and collegial experience. For more information, please see the conference website at www.iona.edu/cip.

Keynote Speakers:

Laura Quilter is an attorney and researcher in technology and information law and policy. Laura's research and practice particularly focuses on the rights of information users, including consumers, libraries, creators, and scientists, and she regularly speaks and writes on these matters. She earned her law degree from Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California, Berkeley, in 2003, and her library science degree from the University of Kentucky in 1993.
http://lquilter.net/professional/briefbio.html || http://lquilter.net/index.php

Painter Joy Garnett appropriates news and documentary photographs from newspapers, internet and other media, and re-invents them as paintings. Her work mines the tensions between the open-ended narratives of art, and ubiquitous media representations of real-life events. Ms. Garnett's work has been exhibited in museums and galleries around the world, including the Whitney Museum of American Art in NYC, the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C., and the Witte Zaal in Ghent, Belgium, and reproduced in numerous publications, from Harper's to Cabinet magazine. In 2004, she was awarded a grant by the Anonymous Was a Woman foundation, and she currently serves as Arts Editor for Cultural Politics, a refereed journal published by Berg in Oxford, UK. http://www.firstpulseprojects.com/joy.html

Image credit: "Molotov." Copyright © Joy Garnett, 2003. From the conference website.

Marvel & DC's Super-Hero "Claim"

As BoingBoing notes (also here, with earlier info here), Marvel Comics is again flexing its muscles and asserting that it co-owns (with DC Comics) a trademark on the term "super heroes" - this time in the publicity for its "Marvel Super Heroes Science Exhibition."

Marvel and DC have been claiming and attempting to enforce this "trademark" for many years. According to this link (one of several) from the US Patent and Trademark Office's "Trademark Application and Registration Retrieval system," Marvel & DC claim a "First Use in Commerce Date" of October 1966. Most knowledgeable folks aggree that this claim is bogus on many levels, but that hasn't stopped the USPTO from allowing the publishers to register the claim successfully and repeatedly over the past few decades. Digging around the archives via TESS reveals that all TM claims aren't automatically registered - some are denied. But from what I can tell, they've never denied Marvel & DC's claim.

Apparently, just because the USPTO allows you to register a trademark doesn't actually mean that they're endorsing your claim's validity - they're just aggreeing that, well, you've made the claim (tax dollars at "work," folks!). I suppose if someone with deep enough pockets and stamina to spare were to take Marvel & DC to court over this, the claim's bogus nature would be revealed and overcome. But until then, these two "super-gorillas" continue to throw their imagined weight around.

Thanks to several folks at the Comics Scholars Discussion List for helping me figure out what I think is going on in this situation. Caveat lector: I ain't no lawyer!