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IP @ the U
April 2025
Welcome to IP @ the U, a periodic newsletter for students, alumni, faculty and friends of the University of Utah College of Law's Program on Intellectual Property and Technology Law. This issue covers highlights from the Spring 2025 semester.
If you have news about IP events, accomplishments and milestones, please send them to our Program Director, Jorge Contreras.
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COL TEAM WINS REGIONAL IP MOOT COURT COMPETITION | The victorious S.J. Quinney Giles Rich Moot Court Team: (L to R) Bre Hickerson (3L), Prof. Dave Johnson (coach) and Robert Stephens (3L) | Congratulations to Bre Hickerson (3L) and Robert Stephens (3L), who represented the College of Law in the annual AIPLA Giles Rich Moot Court Competition. Bre and Robert, who were coached by Adjunct Professor Dave Johnson, won the Regional round of the competition in San Francisco, competing against teams from the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia, Berkeley, USC, Santa Clara, and BYU. They then advanced to the National round in Washington DC, where they competed valiantly. This is an outstanding accomplishment and Bre and Robert deserve kudos for their hard work and preparation. | | IP PROGRAM RANKED #26 BY U.S. NEWS, #9 AMONG PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES | | |
We are delighted to announce that the Intellectual Property and Technology Law Program at the College of Law was again ranked as the #26 IP Program nationally by U.S. News and World Report, which is also #9 among public universities. Thanks to our talented faculty, staff and students for this achievement!
| | PROF. CONTRERAS TESTIFIES AT U.S. SENATE IP SUBCOMMITTEE | | |
In December, Professor Jorge Contreras testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Intellectual Property regarding the proposed RESTORE Patent Rights Act. His written testimony (opposing the Act) can be found here, and a recording of the full hearing can be found here.
| | BENCH 2 BEDSIDE COMPETITION | Left to Right: At the B2B Competition - Hannah Bruce (3L) with members of the HerSight medical product team Hailey Jones, Allison Furr, Heidi Hunter, and Katie Hunter | This year, Braden Brown (2L) and Hannah Bruce (3L), coached by adjunct faculty members Sam Noel and Dan Thomas, and with the assistance of Jordan Cobabe (’23), provided patent filing advice to 13 interdisciplinary student teams from across the state as part of the Center for Medical Innovation’s annual Bench2Bedside competition. Teams developed innovative biomedical products ranging from software and apps to medical devices and instrumentation, which it advised on a number of provisional patent applications. | | LEE E. TEITELBAUM UTAH LAW REVIEW SYMPOSIUM: THIRD-PARTY LITIGATION FUNDING | | |
The Utah Law Review, with the guidance of Professor Jonas Anderson, held its annual Lee E. Teitelbaum Symposium on the topic of third-party litigation funding. The Symposium explored a range of litigation funding issues including the rise of third party funders in patent litigation. Speakers included Jonathan Stroud, General Counsel of Unified Patents and Adam Gill, Founder & Managing Director of GLS Capital. Professor Anderson’s related article Following the Money in Litigation Finance will be published in the Connecticut Law Review.
| | Prof. Jonas Anderson introduces the Lee E. Teitelbaum Utah Law Review Symposium on Third Party Litigation Funding | | | | |
UTILITY MODELS BOOK LAUNCH IN LONDON | | Speakers at the LSE launch of Sub-Patent Innovation Rights (L to R): Uma Suthersanen, Lord Justice Richard Arnold, Lionel Bently K.C., Estelle Derclaye, Jorge Contreras, Martin Husovec, Alessandro Cogo, Yang Yu and Maikon Oliviera (not shown, Sir Robin Jacob) | | | | |
UTAH STATE BAR STUDENT SCHOLARSHIP AWARDS | |
The College of Law was privileged to host the Utah State Bar IP Section’s 27th Annual IP Summit in February. The IP Summit is the biggest annual IP event in the state, and we welcomed more than 300 judges, practitioners, and academics from across the country to our campus. At the Summit, COL students Ashley Fink and Breanna Hickerson were each awarded the IP Section’s Annual IP Scholarship.
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Ashley Fink and Breanna Hickerson receiving Utah State Bar IP Section Scholarships
at the annual IP Summit held at the S.J. Quinney College of Law
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NIL, NFL AND TRADEMARK LAW | | |
Adjunct Professor Dave Dellenbach surprised his Trademark Law class in April with a guest zoom appearance by Alex Smith, former NFL starting quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, Kansas City Chiefs and Washington Redskins. Smith was an undergraduate at the University of Utah, where he led the Utes to victories in the 2003 Liberty Bowl and the 2005 Fiesta Bowl. He spoke with Prof. Dellenbach’s class about name, image and likeness (NIL) rights for college athletes. Smith was joined by long-time sports manager Dave Crowder, who also shared his insights with the class.
| | Professor Dellenbach’s trademark class interacts with former NFL quarterback Alex Smith. | | S.J. QUINNEY CO-SPONSORS WARSAW SEP CONFERENCE | | In March, the S.J. Quinney College of Law was pleased to co-sponsor a major international conference on standards-essential patents and litigation at the Polish Academy of Science in Warsaw. The two-day conference involved judges, government officials, attorneys, corporate representatives and academics from around the world. The conference was sponsored by leading international law firms and companies active in licensing standards-essential patents, including Platinum Level sponsors Kirkland & Ellis and Freshfields. | | | | Prof. Contreras moderating a discussion with Michael Frobisch (EPO), Christian Hannon (USPTO) and Andras Jokuti (WIPO) | | STUDENT IP SCHOLARS ASSIST FACULTY WITH RESEARCH | | |
Thanks to the generous sponsorship of law firms Maschoff Brennan and Workman Nydegger, the College of Law was able to fund two student IP scholars to assist our faculty with a range of research and writing projects this year. Amber Lundgreen assisted Professor Contreras with research on copyright terminations and orphan works, Congressional reversals of judicial patent law decisions and inventorship disputes with the National Institutes of Health, while Breanna Hickerson assisted Professor Anderson with the collection of data on third party litigation finance from federal courts in New Jersey and Delaware.
| | 2024-25 IP Scholars Amber Lundgreen and Breanna Hickerson | | ‘THE GENOME DEFENSE’ ON THE ROAD | | The English (trade paperback) and Japanese (hardcover) editions of The Genome Defense | | Professor Contreras’s award-winning book The Genome Defense: Inside the Epic Legal Battle to Determine Who Owns Your DNA, which tells the story of Utah-based Myriad Genetics and the Supreme Court case that ended gene patenting in America, has continued to attract international attention. In March, Professor Contreras delivered the keynote address at the Montana State Bar IP Day event held at the University of Montana School of Law, focusing on the Myriad case, and in January the Texas A&M Journal of Property Law published its symposium issue containing articles relating to and inspired by The Genome Defense, including Professor Contreras’s essay that situates the book within the larger “True Law” literary genre. And in December, The Genome Defense, which was praised in the U.S. by the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, among others, was released in Japan. | | | Learn more about the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law's Program on Intellectual Property and Technology Law on our website. | | | | |
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