Congratulations to our team from the Iowa College of Law, Joshua Galgano and Michelle Wallace, and their coaches, Prof. Christina Bohannan and Damon Andrews, for winning the national finals of the 41st Annual Giles S. Rich Patent Moot Court Competition. Dr. Galgano is a 3L who holds a PhD in chemical and biochemical engineering; he will begin his career at Sterne Kessler Goldstein & Fox this fall. Ms. Wallace is a 2L with a chemical engineering background; she will be working at Reinhart, Boerner, & Van Deuren this summer. Congratulations to both!
Congratulations also to Suffolk Law School’s team of Christina Mott and Scott Chappell, coached by Even Brown, who finished in second place. Other teams competing in the finals included Columbia, the University of Washington, the University of Utah, the University of Houston, and Michigan State.
Earlier this afternoon, the two teams argued before Judges Lourie, Tarranto, and Chen. This year’s problem involved issues of subject matter eligibility of claims relating to DNA and of subject matter jurisdiction over a licensing dispute. If you’re curious about the problem, it can be found here.
(Also, this morning the Federal Circuit issued its opinion in Apple v. Motorola, affirming-in-part and reversing-in-part Judge Posner. While the three judges agreed on most issues, they disagreed on issues of injunctive relief (Judge Rader would have allowed Motorola’s request for injunctive relief to proceed and Judge Prost would not have vacated the district court’s summary denial of Apple’s request for injunctive relief) and means-plus-function claim interpretation.) More on this opinion later.