We are pleased to announce that a special writing prize is available to BU School of Law students: the Michael Fricklas and Donna Astion Prize in Intellectual Property and Entertainment Law. The winner of the competition will receive a $3,000 prize; in the event of a tie, each winner will receive $3,000. Each entrant must submit (1) an essay about the student’s interest in intellectual property or entertainment law, and (2) a paper written by the student on an intellectual property or entertainment law topic. The paper may be written specifically for this purpose or taken from a journal submission or coursework. Michael Fricklas (’84), BU Law alumnus and Chief Legal Officer of Advance Publications Inc., will be invited to provide feedback on the candidates’ submissions, and then intellectual property law faculty will make the final selection. The submitted material will be evaluated based on the quality of its scholarly contribution and the likelihood that the entrant will make future contributions to intellectual property or entertainment law.

Submissions must be emailed to Olivia Gorman at oliviaeg@bu.edu by April 1, 2026. The winner will be announced by April 17.  Please contact Olivia if you have any questions about the submission process or Prof. Meurer with any questions about the substantive aspect of your submission.

Past Prize Recipients

• 2025: Ellie Taft, “Generative Artificial Intelligence and Fair Use: Assessing Current Licensing Schema Should Courts Determine Training Infringes Upon Copyrighted Material”
• 2024: Jamiee Francis, “Re-Picturing Copyright Management Information Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act”
• 2023: Philip Dutko, “Bolstering THE Blockbuster: How AbbVie’s Humira Strategy Demonstrates Need for a Sea Change in Biosimilar Regulation”
• 2022: Erin Beaton, “Preempting Preemption: A New Approach to Subject Matter Eligibility Analysis” and Valene Mezmin, “Making the Right of Publicity More Accessible for Women, Minorities, and Non-Celebrities”
• 2021: Tamsin Kantor, “Is De Minimis Sampling of Recorded Music a Copyright Violation?”
• 2020: Rachael Walker, “Trademark: Promoting Competition or Protecting Goodwill”
• 2019: Sebastian Derian, “§ 285 Fee Shifting Post-Octane Fitness in the Right Kind of Cases”
• 2017: Deborah Hinck, “Judges, Juries, and Opinion Letters: The Halo Standard For Enhanced Damanges” and James Rickard, “Going Live: The Role of Automation in the Expeditious Removal of Online Content”