St. John’s Intellectual Property Law Center Expands Its Programming and Welcomes New Student Fellows

For over a decade, the Intellectual Property Law Center (IPLC) at St. John’s Law has been a forum for research, education, professional development, and service addressing the legal and policy issues of the knowledge economy. Now, as the Law School celebrates its 100th anniversary, the IPLC is expanding its programming to offer students, alumni, scholars, and practitioners new opportunities to explore how the law and lawyers facilitate the creation, distribution, and use of knowledge, technology, creativity, and expression.

Guiding the IPLC’s growth are its longtime co-directors, Professor Jeremy Sheff, who teaches and writes in trademark and patent law, and Professor Eva E. Subotnik, whose scholarship focuses on questions of artistic intent in copyright law and policy. “We’re excited to make the IPLC an even more valuable resource for our constituencies,” Professor Sheff says. “We’re undertaking a new effort to connect with our successful alumni practicing in IP, technology, content industries, and cultural development, including through our website and social media presence.”

The IPLC’s expansion also includes new and updated curricular offerings. With the addition of a Trade Secrets course this semester, students are gaining practical insight into the complexities of protecting confidential business information in a globally connected world. Next year, Professor Sheff will co-teach a seminar on generative AI with Professor Kate Klonick, whose research focuses on law and technology. The Intellectual Property Colloquium will return, exposing students to a broad array of interdisciplinary scholarship, and the New York City Intellectual Property Law and Philosophy Workshop (IP/LaP)is growing from a local to a national academic conference.

To support the IPLC’s continued growth, Professors Subotnik and Sheff recently relaunched a Student Fellows Program, welcoming Frank Sayegh ’27 and Anna Westfall ’27 as the newest IPLC Fellows. “We identified Anna and Frank as strong 2L students with demonstrated interest in IP,” Professor Subotnik says. “They will familiarize themselves with the IPLC over the coming year, make a lasting contribution to its future, and then pass on their knowledge and experience to their successors next spring before they graduate, so the cycle can continue.”

Anna discovered IP law through undergraduate policy research on the regulation of generative AI. “I learned how innovation and authorship in the digital age have real-world implications,” she shares. She continues to explore those questions in her IP classes and through her involvement with the IPLC-affiliated Intellectual Property Law Society. Frank is also building on an early interest in IP law, one tied to his career aspirations in sports. He is active in the Entertainment, Art, and Sports Law Society—another IPLC-affiliated student organization—and, like Anna, has taken courses taught by Professors Sheff and Subotnik.

With the Fellows beginning their work at the IPLC, Professor Sheff shares his and Professor Subotnik’s vision for the future: “As the IPLC expands its offerings and reach, we hope the Student Fellow Program will not only connect some of our most promising current students with alumni and academics in their chosen fields, but that over time it will create a community of Fellows that will provide experience and support to one another and connections to the broader community of St. John’s lawyers who work in these important areas of practice. It’s a very exciting time to be part of the IPLC.”