2004 Lewis & Clark Law School Fall Business Law Forum

Markman v. Westview Instruments: Lessons from a Decade of Experience

Friday, October 8, 2004, Lewis & Clark Law School, Portland, Oregon

Sponsored by Ater Wynne LLP, InFocus, Klarquist Sparkman, LLP, Kolisch Hartwell, P.C., Marger Johnson & McCollom, P.C., Schwabe Williamson & Wyatt, P.C.

Patents, long a part of our legal landscape, demand more attention as they play a larger role in shaping competition in nearly every part of the marketplace. Patent infringement awards, for example, continue to climb to dizzying new heights, such as last year’s $520+ million award against Microsoft Corp. in the Eolas web browser case. And as the stakes in patent disputes grow, questions about the scope of a given patent owner’s right to exclude others intensify.


Ten years ago, in Markman v. Westview Instruments, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit sparked a new era in patent law, holding that it is for judges – not juries – to resolve disputes about the meaning of patent terms and thus decide the scope of a patent owner’s right to exclude competitors in the market. The Supreme Court affirmed the Federal Circuit’s Markman decision a year later. As a result, over the past decade the Federal Circuit has charted a rich and challenging jurisprudence of patent claim construction. Join leading scholars from around the country to assess the first decade of the Markman era, and to learn the trends that will shape the decade to come.

The Tenth Annual Fall Business Law Forum

The annual Fall Business Law Forum at Lewis & Clark Law School fosters vigorous and engaging discussions about legal issues of vital interest to businesses across the nation, and the world. Papers presented at this year’s Forum will be published in Volume 9 of the Lewis & Clark Law Review.