BU Law Hosts Conference on Patent Policy
“Software Patents: A Time for Change?”was held at Boston University Law School on November 17th. The conference discussed the impact of software patents on software development, innovation and competition and the possibilities for policy reform regarding software patents.
The event was co-sponsored by the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology, the Computer & Communications Industry Association, the MIT Sloan School of Management, the Public Patent Foundation and Research on Innovation.
“The persistent controversy over software patents calls for a reexamination of the issues in light of experience and new research,” said Maureen O’Rourke, dean of the Law School. Issues related to software patents have sparked calls for patent reform here in the United States and have driven efforts to reject legislation authorizing U.S.-style software patents in Europe.
The conference featured multiple round table and panel discussions with leading minds in the field of patent law and patent reform. Panelists included Robert Barr (UC Berkeley), Emily Ward (eBay), Eric von Hippel (MIT), Bob Hunt (Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia), Danny Weitzner (World Wide Web Consortium), Steven Soucar (IBM) and Ben Klemens (Brookings Institution), James Heald (Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure), as well as legal and economics scholars.
Conference Web site
Read conference review, "Software Patent Conference Outlines Problems, Possible Solutions"