Student Commentary

IP Moot Court: Leaving your Comfort Zone

The Old State House in Boston, MA

This year, I had the honor of being one of four team members to represent Temple Law in the American Intellectual Property Law Association Moot Court Competition. Temple traditionally fields two teams of two students, and this year’s regional competition was held in Boston.

The USS Constitution

Intellectual property is an umbrella term covering several discrete areas of law. This year’s problem had a patent issue and a jurisdictional issue. The problem was released in the fall of 2017 and my teammate and I started working on it in October. We were fortunate enough to be coached by Temple Law professor Don Harris and Assistant Dean Shyam Nair.

The first thing we had to do was write two briefs, one for each party. It took a certain amount of mental gymnastics to advocate for one party and then switch to the other side. The patent issue was one of obviousness. In order for a patent to be valid, it has to be non-obvious. “Obviousness” is the subject of much litigation and a great deal of research had to be done. We had to find cases that both supported and refuted a finding of non-obviousness since we were writing briefs for both sides. The jurisdictional issue was whether the federal district court had jurisdiction to hear the case because it arose out of a contract dispute. Typically, contracts are the domain of the states while patents are subject to federal jurisdiction. Again, a great deal of research was done.

Once we had an understanding of the issues, we began writing the briefs. Legal writing is often a group effort, and this was no different. We had several meetings with our coaches and the other Temple team to flesh out the arguments and decide how to best present them. In the end, we submitted two 30-page briefs by the February deadline.

A Memorial to Paul Revere

The next stage of the competition was preparing for oral arguments. This is where you stand in front of a three-judge panel and explain your case while being questioned by the judges. I’ve never taken part in mock trial or moot court, so this part was intimidating to me. Our first official practice session was in front of a panel of Temple professors. This dealt largely with style over substance, eliminating any “umms” or filler language from our arguments. Next, we took the show on the road to four local law firms. The format was the same: we stood in front of a panel of judges and gave our arguments, but this time they were attorneys who practice patent law for a living. In addition to comments on style, the attorneys gave a lot of substantive feedback, pointing out both the strong and weak points in our arguments.

Finally, at the end of March we headed to Boston for the competition. There were twelve teams competing from schools in the Northeast. The judges were volunteer attorneys, most of whom practiced intellectual property law. Our practice sessions prepared us well, as both my teammate and I had responses prepared for all of the questions posed. Only four teams moved on to the final rounds of the competition and unfortunately neither Temple team advanced. The upside was we got to spend some time touring Boston, walking the Freedom Trail and checking out other local sites.

Overall, I’m very grateful I had this experience. When our practice sessions started, I was a nervous wreck. By the time of the competition, though, I was calm and collected, ready for whatever questions came. I think the best thing for a law student is to push out of his or her comfort zone and this experience definitely took me out of mine.

Questions about this post? Drop us a line at lawcomm@temple.edu.