From the Deans' Suite - 11/19/25 - Leaders in Intellectual Property

“This was the first CSU Law IP+ conference I have attended. I found it to be one of the best CLE conferences I have attended in the 51 years since I graduated from then Cleveland-Marshall College of Law.”

That generous reflection from an alumnus who joined us last Friday for the IP+ Conference 2025 captures what a special event it was. With more than 300 people registered, this was one of the largest professional conferences we’ve hosted at CSU|Law—bringing together judges, leading practitioners, scholars, students, and alumni for a genuinely exceptional day of learning and connection.

The program featured many of the nation’s top intellectual property experts, including keynote speakers Donald Chisum, author of Chisum on Patents, and Janice Mueller, co-founder of the Chisum Patent Academy and author of a leading patent law casebook. The conference also included a fireside chat with Federal Circuit Judges Richard Linn and Kathleen O’Malley (ret.) and a “State of IP” panel featuring Chisum, Mueller, Linn, O’Malley, and Professor Dennis Crouch of Patently-O. Morning sessions highlighted cutting-edge issues in IP and medicine, IP in sports and entertainment, and intellectual property finance, followed by a robust student networking lunch and afternoon sessions.

The conference also marked the official launch of the Center for Intellectual Property and Entrepreneurship at CSU|Law.

The Center will be a hub for teaching, scholarship, and community engagement at the intersection of intellectual property, innovation, and business. It will connect our courses, certificate programs, conferences, scholarship, and external partnerships to prepare our students to advise creators, companies, and entrepreneurs in a rapidly changing economy.

We are fortunate to have an exceptionally strong intellectual property faculty leading this work. Professor Christa Laser, Director of the Center for Intellectual Property and Entrepreneurship, is a nationally recognized scholar whose research focuses on intellectual property and innovation. Her patent law scholarship has been cited widely by other scholars, by judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and in briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court. She directs our intellectual property certificate program, helps students build practice-ready pathways in innovation and technology law, and has been the driving force behind the IP+ Conference.

We are equally proud of Professor Mehtab Khan, whose teaching and scholarship sit at the forefront of intellectual property, AI law, and technology policy. Professor Khan is an expert on copyright law, platform governance, and artificial intelligence, with recent work on AI accountability frameworks, generative AI regulation, and the impact of AI on creative industries.

Together, Professors Laser and Khan exemplify the vision for our new Center: rigorous, practice-grounded scholarship and teaching that engages directly with the technological and economic transformations reshaping law and society.

We are deeply grateful to the generous sponsors whose support made the IP+ Conference—and the launch of the Center for Intellectual Property and Entrepreneurship—possible: John Cipolla (Calfee), Squire Patton Boggs, Tucker Ellis, and SporTech.

Their investment allows us to host a conference of this caliber, bring national leaders in IP to our campus, and create year-round programming that supports both student career development and alumni practice.

We also want to recognize the outstanding contributions of our student volunteers—Eric Fogle, Kaitlin Cesa, Julia Mandel, and Stacey L. Steggert—who helped the day run smoothly and made our guests feel welcome. They were at the registration tables, in the Moot Court Room, and at the student networking lunch, quietly doing the work that builds community and opportunity. In their efforts, we see our mission in action.

The IP+ Conference 2025 and the Center for Intellectual Property and Entrepreneurship are only two examples of the extraordinary work our students, faculty, alumni and staff are doing on cutting-edge issues. And they illustrate that Cleveland State University College of Law is a place where innovators, entrepreneurs, and problem-solvers come to learn the law and use it to shape the future.

Warmly,
Brian