The Pierce Advantage in a Nutshell: Leading the Way in IP Education

IP at Pierce Law

Peer Recognition: IP Professor Always Rate Pierce Law on Top

One goal of the IP @ Pierce section is to provide potential students and those interested in evaluating the Law Center with data to compile a matrix to avoid defaulting to reliance on law school rankings to make important decisions. That said, of factor of competitive advantage is how peer IP law professors rate their peer schools.

Since 1992, the U.S. News & World Report (US News) has been ranking the top law schools that specialize in the study of IP. This ranking is determined by votes from IP Professors from across the country. During the first three years of the rankings (1992-1994), only the top five IP law programs were listed. Since 1995, the top ten IP law programs have been listed.

The US News publication also produces a ranking of how ABA accredited law schools rank overall. This ranking has drawn many criticisms.

From 1992 through 2007 (16 year period), Pierce Law has consistently ranked within the top seven IP law programs in the country. During the period of 1992 through 2003, Pierce was ranked consistently within the top five IP law programs in the country. In that same period, from 1997-1999 (three years), FPLC was ranked as the #1 IP law program. In both the 2004 and 2006 rankings, FPLC fell to its lowest rank of seventh. As of 2007, Pierce has jumped back up to fourth in the rankings.

Additionally, Pierce is only one of two schools (George Washington University) to be included in every US News IP ranking from 1992 through 2007. During this sixteen year period, Pierce has an average ranking of 3.5 (George Washington has an average of approximately 2). Since 1995, only the University of California-Berkeley (UC-Berkeley) and George Washington University (GW) have a higher average ranking than FPLC. UC-Berkeley did not appear in the IP rankings until 1996, but has been ranked as the #1 IP program 9 times. Since 1992, GW University has ranked as the #1 IP program 4 times. FPLC has ranked as the #1 IP law program 3 times, and Columbia University has ranked #1 once.

This "David and Goliath" story is remarkable. What drives IP professors all around the country to vote Pierce Law a top IP law school over top rated law schools with considerable resources.

Demonstrable and Sustainable Excellence: Successful IP Alum Professionals in Almost One Hundred Countries

Pierce Law has a long history in educating global IP professionals. From the U.S. to Europe, China, Taiwan, Korea, India, central and latin America and remote corners of Africa, students flow from around the globe every year to be part of the Pierce IP community of success. The pages in this section will show the unparalleled networking opportunities Pierce Law has built over three decades. Pierce Law alums occupy all arenas of the IP profession.

top ranked IP law firms
high level corporate IP counsel in world giants such as Microsoft, Samsung, etc.
officials at government agencies like the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
Clerks in courts including the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the highest IP appeals court below the Supreme Court
policy makers at a wide range of influential non-governmental organizations such as the World Intellectual Property Office
professors at law and undergraduate schools
licensing professionals
successful consultants

When you graduate from Pierce Law you are part of a community that is full of networking, resources and career opportunities. Pierce Law alum want to help each other. They know the the success of one enhances the success of the whole. Many friendships are formed at Pierce Law and some students say it was the best time of their lives.

IP Faculty: Global, Experienced, Student Centered, Leaders in the Field

Pierce Law has one of the largest full time resident IP faculties in the United States, supplemented by a substantial influential contingent of domestic and foreign adjuncts. Pierce Law has continuously followed a strategic plan to attract high profile global IP leaders to teach courses both during the academic year as well as during the innovative Intellectual Property Summer Institute.

Pierce Law IP Faculty have extensive and diverse experience:

five IP Faculty are members of the United States Patent Bar
four IP Faculty practiced trademark law in IP law firms
our IP Faculty members have prosecuted IP, litigated IP and managed IP
one IP Faculty member was an examiner at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
one IP Faculty member is a well known author practicing in a national patent law firm
one IP Faculty member was corporate counsel at a giant pharmaceutical department
one IP Faculty member was IP counsel for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
one IP Faculty member, a Cornell Ph.D. biotechnology graduate and prolific author, was the principle investigator in the world famous "golden rice" freedom to operate patent landscape analysis
one IP Faculty member is a pioneering innovator in IP research tools and strategies, writing and teaching in the field of patent informatics

Pierce Law IP Faculty range in teaching experience from several years to over three decades. Beyond the model of teaching and legal scholarship, IP Faculty engage in a wide range of global activities:

participating in conferences, symposium, continuing legal education, government, NGO and many other IP related events
leaders in global and domestic professional associations
acting as expert witnesses
acting as arbitrators
authoring content in a wide range of formats including articles, casebooks, treatises, reports, websites and blogs.

Despite these many activities, IP Faculty are committed to educating students and working toward the success of students in the global IP professional arena. They participate in a wide range of student oriented activities including speaking at student events, acting as moot court judges, mentoring law review editors and joining in fellowship at the many student social and ethnic activities.

35 Years of Practice Based Education

Thirty five years ago President Robert Rines had been a successful patent lawyer his entire career. What he experienced was that no new lawyers knew how to draft and prosecute patents. They knew some law but had no skills. Pierce Law was founded with the goal of graduating well educated IP lawyers who have solid practice based skills. Only two schools taught patent law in any meaningful way before the founding of Pierce Law and neither taught patent prosecution. This has been confirmed by Pierce Law after discussions with senior IP faculty at these law schools. The Patent Bar at that time was very small in number.

Rines collected a nationally unique team of patent lawyers that would present students with the most well rounded patent prosecution education. The IP Patent Faculty team at that time included a law firm patent lawyer, a university/corporate patent lawyer and a former patent examiner from the USPTO. This team set up the patent law and practice curriculum. The first courses were Patent Law and Practice I & II, which remain the backbone patent prosecution courses to this day.

Over the last three decades the IP curriculum has steadily grown to one of the top in the U.S.. Like our Faculty with a blend of expertise in both law and practice, our courses consistently incorporate law and practice. Our goal is to produce graduates who are at the level of a second or third year law firm associate.

Practice based IP education is one cornerstone of the Pierce IP advantage. Students are offered practice based experience is a wide range of settings beyond the classroom including: clinics, externships, clerkships, moot courts, writing competitions, teaching and research assistantships student organization networking events with distinguished speakers and visitors as well as jobs during the summer and academic year.

Curriculum

Franklin Pierce Law Center has one of the most extensive and intensive intellectual property curriculum in the U.S.

Franklin Pierce Law Center offers over thirty intellectual property or closely related courses. Pierce Law rarely offer a course every other year. We offer core courses up to three times a year. That is especially important to students here for the one year Graduate Programs degrees. At other schools students miss taking courses because of conflicts.

Moreover, our formal classes are supplemented by:

independent studies (for credit)
an Intellectual Property Transactional Clinic
an International Technology Transfer Clinic including advanced patent landscape searches and building Technology Transfer Offices for government and institutions outside the U.S.
externships (at e.g., the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the International Trade Commission, Calvin Klein) (for credit)
conferences and institutes with prominent members of the IP profession
guest lectures, including those offered during extended formal and informal visits by IP judges, government officials and practitioners
continuing legal education programs primarily designed for practitioners
editing IDEA: The Intellectual Property Law Review, a leading IP law review (for credit)
national and international moot court competitions (for credit).

Globally Unique Intellectual Property Academic Resources

The Intellectual Property Library at Pierce Law is the only academic IP Library in the Western Hemisphere. The IP Library maintains an extensive collection covering United States, foreign, and international intellectual property titles. Library resources include all major formats. The collection spans three hundred years of intellectual property scholarship, and includes scholarly, practice, and news materials. It is a depository of publications by the World Intellectual Property Organization. Pierce Law also receives all significant publications of the Patent and Trademark and Copyright Offices as a GPO Depository Library.

The virtual IP Library includes the award-winning IP Mall website, which provides an invaluable online resource for intellectual property research and scholarship, as well as current news and legal developments in intellectual property law. This site is visited millions of times a year.

The IP Library is administered by the only law school in the United States with a IP Professor specializing in IP research tools and strategies as well as patent informatics. Professor Jon Cavicchi is the Intellectual Property Librarian who teaches numerous IP research courses as well as acting as Director of Research of the International Technology Transfer Institute.

Other academic resources at Pierce Law include several publications , such as IDEA: The Intellectual Property Law Review. IDEA is one of the oldest and most respected IP journals in the United States.

Pierce Law is also home to the Kenneth J. Germeshausen Center. The Germeshausen Center is a driving force in the study of international and national intellectual property law and the transfer of technology. It acts as a resource to business as well as scientific, legal and governmental interests in patent, trademark, trade secret, licensing, copyright, computer law, and related fields.