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| past news |
Center for Creative Problem Solving wins U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Grant
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2011 and 2012, the Center for Creative Problem Solving is pleased to be working on a grant from the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
The grant is for a study of the settlement of Intellectual Property rights disputes. In mid-January, 2012 representatives from ten countries that have developed specialty courts for IP disputes will meet at the USPTO in Washington, D.C. to compare their innovations. Professors James Cooper and Thomas D. Barton will offer an overview of how globalization and digitalization influence the need for, and the shape of, ADR methods to address IP problems. Then, in March a Symposium will be convened at California Western School of Law devoted explicitly to considering new methods for preventing and resolving IP issues.
Experts from around the world will be there – with a number of practitioners sharing their views. Latin America will be well represented, with a major focus on MERCOSUR, the Southern Cone Customs Union, and its intellectual property rights regime. Carlos Ruffinelli, an instructor in the Chile Summer Program in 2009 and a professor at several universities in Paraguay, will be representing the Centro de Estudios, Derecho y Politíca in Asunción. Dr. Karin Klempp from Brazil will also be speaking. Dr. Klempp was featured in the IP Piracy film, which was produced by Proyecto ACCESO. You can find it here.
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Proyecto ACCESO has developed tools for law enforcement and public education programs to fight the scourge of intellectual property piracy as part of its rule of law efforts. The PTO award for the study and symposium continues the work that the Center of Creative Problem Solving does in intellectual property rights.
“We are really exited to bring together such great people, real experts in the field,” said Professor Cooper. “I have known some of these people for a long time – others are recent colleagues all united in the effort to explore the boundaries of solving Intellectual Property disputes,” he explained.
Also expected at the March 8 and 9, 2012 symposium are Professor Jacques de Werra of the Université de Genéve Faculté de Droit, Professor Bashar H. Malkawi of the University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates, and Dr. Nari Lee of the Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property Law. Practitioners who are speaking include Richard Naiberg of Goodmans in Toronto.
The presentations will be edited in a set of law review article to be published in the Spring 2013 volume of California Western International Law Journal.
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February is Paraguay Month at California Western School of Law!
El Caso Paraguayo: Un ejemplo de la reforma penal en Latinoamerica
(The Case of Paraguay: An example of law reform in Latin America)
Senador Marcelo Duarte, Congreso de Paraguay
Friday, February 17, 2012, 6:30 p.m., LH1
International Legal Practice and Problem Solving in the Heart of South America
Profesor Carlos Ruffinelli, Centro de Estudios de Derecho, Economía, y Politíca, Asunción, Paraguay
Wednesday, February 22, 2012, 12 p.m., Room 2F
Receptions to follow.
California Western School of Law
350 Cedar Street
San Diego, CA, 92101-3090
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Co-sponsors: International Legal Studies Program, International Law Society, and La Raza Law Student Association
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Center for Creative Problem Solving at California Western School of Law Wins Grant from the United States Patent and Trademark Office for Study and Symposium
The Center for Creative Problem Solving won a grant from the US Patent and Trademark Office, starting August 1, 2011, for a study and symposium on trends in Alternative Dispute Resolution in Intellectual Property (IP) rights disputes.
Increasingly, stakeholders in IP litigation are using other fora, mechanisms, and institutions to create and protect value from IP assets. With so much of the knowledge economy riding on incentivizing new innovations, this study and symposium are particularly timely. Professors Thomas D. Barton and James Cooper will be co-principal investigators on the project.
Professor Cooper has recently worked with the U.S. Department of Justice on a project dealing with IP piracy (See ). This work builds on that foundation and the Center’s work in understanding evolving problem-solving mechanism.
More news about an international symposium on March 9 and 10, 2012 will come soon.
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Post-Graduate Programs in Latin America
Working with Proyecto ACCESO and the International Legal Studies Program at California Western School of Law has partnered with law schools in Argentina, Bolivia, and Paraguay in executing post-graduate programs on Problem Solving, ADR and Negotiation, and the Rule of Law.
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The line-up of the professors from CWSL included Professors Tom Barton, Mark Weinstein, Tim Casey, Justin Brooks and Judge James Stiven (retired) who fought altitude sickness and other challenges at 4300 meters above sea level. Subsequest lectures from UCB professors rounded out the program. We also completed a post-graduate program on problem-solving in Paraguay featuring lectures by Professors Barton, Ehrlich, and Einesman.
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The Universidad Catolica de Argentina in Paraná is our host and coordinating institution. The line-up includes Professor Tom Barton who lectured on August 18 and 19, Professor Timothy Casey and Professor Justin Brooks later in October and November.
For a recent article about the post-graduate program and Professor Barton, please click here.
For some pictures of this events, please go here
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Book Project Nearing Completion: Environment and Law in Amazonia: A Plurilateral Encounter
This book is based on an international interdisciplinary conference held in San Diego on May 7 and 8, 2010.
The conference, co-sponsored by the Center for Creative Problem Solving at California Western School of Law and University of California, San Diego’s Center for Iberian and Latin American Studies (CILAS), was titled “Environment and the Law in Amazonia: A Plurilateral Encounter”. The book to be published in 2012 by Sussex Academic Press in the United Kingdom will be edited by Professor James Cooper of California Western School of Law and Professor Christine Hunefeldt-Frode who directed CILAS from 2006 to 2010.
California Western Associate Dean William Aceves and Professor Richard Finkmoore, along with Professor Cooper, are all chapter contributors. So are Professors Nancy Postero of UCSD, Stefano Varese of UC, Davis, and Swedish and U.S. National Public Radio’s Claes Andreasson. Ambassador Jeffrey Davidow, President Emeritus of the Institute of the Americas, is providing the concluding chapter, as he was keynote speaker in the May 2010 conference. Scholars from Caracas, Lima, and Rio de Janeiro explore Amazonia in a virtual and real way.
Few topics are so large yet so uncovered in academic literature as the Amazon Basin. Some nine South American states, hundreds of groups of indigenous peoples, dozens of multinational corporations, and the world’s climate are all involved. This book shall help explore how engaged scholarship can help inform and call to action stakeholders, students, professionals and public policy makers.
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Legal Pluralism: Indigenous Practices and Problem Solving
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Legal pluralism refers to the notion of multiple legal systems operating within one state. Throughout Latin America, indigenous peoples employ traditional legal systems in nations that operate under modernized legal systems. Challenges arise when these systems must be integrated to serve all citizens.
The Center has researched problem-solving mechanisms in Bolivia’s evolving pluralistic legal system. A new constitution, approved by referendum in January 2009, provided for more respect for and integration of indigenous practices for dispute resolution. We have long worked with justice authorities and community leaders to develop mechanisms of peaceful dispute resolution and explore the workings of legal pluralism.
We have started a legal anthropological study of Bolivia’s traditional problem-solving practices. We are archiving, studying and disseminating best practices among original communities and indigenous peoples and building on our relations with the International Labor Organization, Friedrich Eberts Foundation, and Bolivian government agencies. Our academic work in the area of legal pluralism continued as well.
| Guarani Liberty Initiative Video | Mapuche Trial Video |
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Conference on Legal Pluralism: Comparative Challenges for Latin America Brings Global Scholars and Practitioners to UCSD and CWSL
On May 5 and 6, 2011, Proyecto ACCESO worked with the Center for Creative Problem Solving and the Center for Iberian and Latin American Studies at University of California, San Diego to host an international conference on legal pluralism in Latin America. The project was funded in part by the Institute of International, Area, and Comparative Studies at UC, San Diego and the United States Department of Education.
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The proceedings were engaging and accessible. Following the keynote address by Chief Justice Robert Yazzie (retired) of the Navajo Nation, Professor Thomas D. Barton, Co-Director of the Center for Creative Problem Solving, opened the conference with some theoretical underpinnings and recognized both challenges and opportunities. Professor David Mares, Director of CILAS, spoke to issues of sovereignty natural resources and the rights of individual landowners when it comes to the subsoil. Professor James Cooper, a Co-Director of the Center for Creative Problem Solving with experience working in Bolivia and Chile on indigenous issues has been director of Proyecto ACCESO since 1998. He addressed the need for understanding, clarity, and security in the sources of law, calling for some form of codification.
Other speakers to the conference included Professor Daniel Goldstein of the Anthropology Department of Rutgers University, Professor Nancy Postero of UCSD, Professor Nigel Bankes from the University of Calgary Faculty of Law, Ted Macdonald of Harvard University, Jaime Vintimilla of the Universidad San Francisco in Quito, Ecuador, Cristobal Carmona of Universidad Católica de Temuco, Raquel Fajardo of a Peruvian NGO focused on indigenous issues, and Isabela Figueroa, an Ecuadorian lawyer doing work in Brazil and Colombia. As Latin American nations work to reform their legal justice systems, they look to Canada, New Zealand, and the U.S. as models for legal pluralism. There are increasing efforts to create parallel justice systems in some countries in Latin America.
This conference helped the Center for Creative Problem Solving at California Western School of Law and CILAS understand how best to analyze these trends, ensure that pluralism does not run afoul of internationally accepted standards of justice, equitably treat all the stakeholders of natural resources, and provide a new recognition of non-state based notions of justice. Proyecto ACCESO, which sponsored the reception for the conference, has been working with indigenous groups since 1998, when the project was first started in Temuco, the south of Chile. Working with the Universidad Católica de Temuco, Mapuche leaders and judicial administers we exchanged ideas, built institutions, and grounded the criminal procedure reform to local conditions. We have worked on indigenous issues in Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay, and Perú. For more about ACCESO Indígena, please click here: ACCESO Indigena.
| Usos Y Costumbres | Preventive Law |
A more formalized research project and accompanying book project are currently being developed in partnership between the Center for Creative Problem Solving and CILAS.
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The Area of Concentration
Three students graduated in May 2011 having successfully completed the requirements for the Creative Problem Solving Area of Concentration. Several more students are currently working toward obtaining recognition through this concentration program.
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Presentations in Problem-Solving and Preventive Law
Co-Director Thomas Barton has delivered several papers or made other presentations advancing the Problem Solving and Preventive Law approach. These included an invitation to speak with the faculty, administrators, and a special Curriculum Committee of Suffolk Law School in Boston about the Center, and the STEPPS program (which takes Problem Solving/Preventive Law as a theoretical foundation).
He spoke also this summer at the Osher Foundation at UC San Diego, and this Fall plans to speak and teach a class at Joensuu University in Finland; at the Global Forum of the International Association for Contract and Commercial Management (IACCM) in October; and at a Conference of the European version of Preventive Law in Copenhagen.
Finally, the American Association of Law Schools (AALS) issued a call for proposed panels addressing “cross-cutting issues” at the upcoming Annual Conference in January, 2012. Historically, it has been difficult to fit the ideas of Preventive Law into the section structure of the AALS. Professor Barton put together a proposal for a panel to speak on “Preventing Legal Problems” and recruited four other professors around the country to participate.
The proposal was accepted and will be presented in Washington, D.C. on January 6, 2012. Other speakers on the panel will include CWSL Fall visitor Ed Dauer, plus Jonathan Cohen from the law school at the University of Florida; Susan Daicoff from Florida Coastal; and Jill Barclift from Hamline University in Minnesota.
Copyright 2012 CWSL. All rights reserved