Pleased to be back in Washington, DC. The Institute for Intellectual Property and Social Justice (IIPSJ) celebrated its 20th anniversary of advancing a worthy cause long before it became today’s mainstay. Warm congratulations to Professor Lateef Mtima, Esther Lim, and Tashia Bunch! Social justice is a core pillar of Penn State Dickinson Law’s mission. We are proud to count IIPSJ as our institutional partner and cooperate closely with them on several initiatives.

Over two days, we considered various issues, including how cutting-edge developments in ChatGPT, the metaverse, AI, data privacy and security impact society and legal practice. We also looked at “whole of society” innovative initiatives such as the Unleashing American Innovation Act and ‘innovator diversity pilot.’ programs.

Andrew Cooper (Meta), Claire Desmond (Under Armour), Izu Emeagwali (J.P. Morgan), Yen Florczak (3M Company), and Ankur Shah (Freddie Mac) shared brilliant and memorable insights on how each exemplified leadership in adding value through intangible assets to their respective corporations and their work in advancing social justice. Theirs was a discussion that was a pleasure and honor for me to moderate.

It was good to hear from Judge Len Stark (U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit), Judge Scott Boalick (Patent Trial and Appeal Board), and Judge (ret.) Susan Braden (U.S. Court of Claims), Judge Bryan Moore (U.S. International Trade Commission), Chip Rettew, Professors Margo Bagley, Colleen Chien, and Sandra Aistars, and connect with a few of them on the sidelines of the event.

Meetings were an important part of this trip. I enjoyed catching up with Judge Pauline Newman (U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit), Dr. Anu Sawkar (Federal Trade Commission), Rob Sterne (Sterne Kessler Goldstein and Fox), John Connolly (Senator Hirono), as well as Daniel Lee, Michelle Yang, and Jake Ewerdt (U.S. Trade Representative). We exchanged views on IP law and policy in the context of their respective responsibilities. Much remains to be done, and much can be done together.

Ended my trip by visiting the Lincoln Memorial. En route, I caught sight of a picture of Jim Thorpe, considered one of the most versatile athletes of modern sports. He was the first Native American to win Olympic gold for the U.S. He won two Olympic gold medals in the 1912 Summer Olympics, one in the pentathlon and the other in the decathlon. He also played football, baseball, and basketball professionally. Jim Thorpe and Penn State Dickinson Law share a connection. As a youth, he attended Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, also the home of Dickinson Law.

What I saw at the Lincoln Memorial sums up the spirit of what must be done. The first was an inscription marking where Martin Luther King Jr. stood when he gave his “I have a dream” speech. The speech is famous for its aspirational overtures, but what is less known but clear from the engraving was its very practical goal – jobs and freedom through ending segregation, securing fair wages and economic justice, voting rights, education, and overdue civil rights protections.

The second was President Lincoln’s second inaugural. After an entire generation of one-term presidents, he won a second term. His words on that occasion guide us still: “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”