Public Interest IP Law School Clinics

Participating in clinics can be an amazing opportunity to gain valuable practical experience.

As I’ve mentioned before, whenever law students ask me for advice on IP careers, my responses usually have a public interest bent to them. After I graduated law school, I was amazed by how many different areas lie at the intersection of intellectual property and public interest, and that there are several law school clinics that focus on these areas. If you’re thinking about going to law school, the good news is that there are plenty of law schools that have great IP clinics. I’ve always been a huge proponent of clinics because you get a much better feel for what type of law you might want to practice.

While there are a number of transactional type intellectual property clinics that will give you great hands-on experience (such as doing prior art searches and filing for patents or counseling tech startups), I’m going to focus on the public interest-related ones, which are (often) more policy-oriented. Full disclosure: I have worked with a number of these clinics on various policy issues in the past and these are the ones I’m most familiar with, but there are definitely more out there, so do your research.

What type of work might you get to do in a public interest intellectual property clinic? That answer obviously depends on the area of focus. A D.C.-based law clinic might be more heavily involved in regulatory proceedings. A Los Angeles-based clinic might have a steady stream of filmmaker clients. Does the clinic focus on a wide range of intellectual property matters, or is it more specialized?

Regardless of the specific focus are, an intellectual property law clinic might provide an opportunity to walk clients through analyses to determine whether a particular incorporation of a portion of an existing work into a new piece of art is likely to be a fair use. Clinics may offer students a chance to draft amicus briefs in circuit courts or before SCOTUS, providing a unique policy perspective that is often distinct from the parties to the case, for example, in a case about patent trolls. A clinic might have a client who wants to have a voice at a Copyright Office roundtable or hearing on issues such as mass digitization or circumvention of technological protection measures.

There are also a number of issues that, while not strictly about patent, copyright, or trademark, relate to these areas. Internet law, net neutrality, media law, the First Amendment, and privacy are just some related areas that a technology-focused clinic might care about. The right of publicity and defamation might be an area that an arts clinic might need to delve into. Health law and disability law might come into play in a health clinic.

The UC Irvine School of Law’s Intellectual Property, Arts, & Tech Clinic “work[s] to protect civil liberties and support innovation in the digital age.” Among other projects, this clinic has represented clients in requesting exemptions from the anti-circumvention provisions (remember this post on the problems with digital locks?) under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

Stanford’s Juelsgaard Intellectual Property and Innovation Clinic notes that its students draft amicus briefs, prepare comments, and deliver testimony in federal agency rulemaking proceedings and draft white papers. For example, the clinic submitted an amicus brief to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Oracle v. Google on behalf of “76 pioneers and luminaries in the field of computer science” and one to SCOTUS, representing the non-profit organization Engine Advocacy in TC Heartland v. Kraft Food on forum shopping in patent cases.

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Berkeley’s Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic “trains law and graduate students in public interest work on emerging technologies, privacy, intellectual property, free speech, consumer and citizen interests in technology deployment and design, creativity, innovation and other information policy issues.” The clinic’s students and faculty co-authored the book Fair Use for Nonfiction Authors together with the organization the Authors Alliance.

Colorado’s Technology Law and Policy Clinic has also worked on requests for DMCA exemptions, including a petition in the current rulemaking cycle to allow for circumvention for technological protection measures to make videos accessible for persons with disabilities, including closed and open captions an audio descriptions.

American University Washington College of Law’s Intellectual Property Law Clinic, among other projects, provides “copyright counseling related to fair use issues for various filmmakers, artists, and activists.” One of these projects included providing counseling for the 2016 documentary The Witness about the 1964 murder of Kitty Genovese.

Participating in clinics can be an amazing opportunity to gain valuable practical experience, not only in terms of working on real cases and having actual clients, but also for determining interest in a particular area of law. Luckily, there are many great law schools with intellectual property clinics, including those that are public interest-oriented.


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Krista L. Cox is a policy attorney who has spent her career working for non-profit organizations and associations. She has expertise in copyright, patent, and intellectual property enforcement law, as well as international trade. She currently works for a non-profit member association advocating for balanced copyright. You can reach her at kristay@gmail.com.