The third annual IPWatchdog LIVE conference opened with panels examining global trends in IP policy and a review of U.S. Supreme Court case law, as well as the presentation of the third annual Paul Michel Award, which each year honors a respected industry leader and advocate for fairness in the IP community. On a panel that detailed some of the most recent U.S. Supreme Court’s IP decisions, retired U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) Judge Paul Michel described the arguably contradictory holdings in Google v. Oracle and Warhol v. Goldsmith as “useless” in terms of substantive guidance from the Court. “These two cases represent a failure on the part of the Supreme Court to provide meaningful guidance to users who need it now,” Michel said. Professor Llew Gibbons of the University of Toledo College of Law explained the holdings in each of the cases and concluded that “I couldn’t find a principled reason other than ‘we want to come out differently’” for the Court’s ruling in Warhol, considering the Google decision.

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