Protecting and Promoting AI Innovation: Patent Eligibility Reform as an Imperative for National Security and Innovation

This event is part of a three-part symposium on Security, Privacy, and Innovation: Reshaping Law for the AI Era.  The first, Responding to AI Enabled Surveillance and Digital Authoritarianism is on September 17, 2021, the second, Constitutional Values and the Rule of Law in the AI Era: Confronting a Changing Threat Landscape is on September 24, 2021, and the third, Protecting and Promoting AI Innovation: Patent Eligibility Reform as an Imperative for National Security and Innovation is on October 1, 2021.  Please join us for all!

The third session of the symposium will consist of two one-hour panels with a 10 minute intermission in between. The first panel will feature a debate between arguments for and against reform to the patent eligibility doctrine.

The second panel will add further insight to these positions and discuss practical impacts on innovation in AI and other emerging technologies. The discussion will cover national security implications, capacity, and comparative issues.

Panel 1:

• Ruth L. Okediji, Jeremiah Smith, Jr. Professor of Law, Harvard School of Law (moderator)
• Andrei Iancu, Former Director, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
• David Jones, Executive Director, High Tech Inventors Alliance
• Paul Michel, Former Chief Judge of Federal Circuit

Panel 2:

• Kristen Jakobsen Osenga, Austin E. Owen Research Scholar & Professor of Law, University of Richmond School of Law (moderator)
• Ryan Abbott, Professor of Law and Health Sciences, University of Surrey School of Law; Adjunct Assistant Professor of Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA
• Drew Hirshfeld, Acting Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
• Laura Sheridan, Senior Patent Counsel and Head of Patent Policy at Google 
• Hans Sauer, Deputy General Counsel, VP for IP, Biotechnology Industry Organization

The series is jointly sponsored by the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, the Reiss Center on Law and Security, and Just Security