PATENTS, PARIS, AND THE AGA KHAN MARSHALL LEAFFER REFLECTS ON A LONG CAREER IN PRACTICING AND TEACHING
Marshall Leaffer, distinguished scholar in intellectual property law and university fellow, retired from full-time teaching in June 2022 after 43 years, 25 of them at Indiana Law. In a recent interview with ergo editor Ken Turchi, Leaffer looked back on his long career with a glance at the future.
Ken Turchi: You often hear about professors who go to law school with the goal of becoming a teacher. Was that your situation? Marshall Leaffer: Not initially, although it was at the back of my mind. I had this kind of romantic notion of practicing law internationally and going off to see the world first, with a dynamic practice. KT: And you did, didn’t you? ML: As a matter of fact, I had a lot of jobs in the legal profession. In law school, I was interested in two things: criminal law, for a while, and then intellectual property. The first job that was offered to me in the field was as the attorney advisor to the Patent and Trademark Office. KT: What steered you away from criminal law? ML: I was looking at those two possibilities, and it seemed to be a little more practical, in my mind, to do intellectual property given my interests. So I said, “Why not? Let’s give it a shot.” I was with the Patent and Trademark Office for about a year and a half, but six months out of that year I spent in Paris, which was a wonderful deal. The Patent and Trademark Office was good enough to keep my position open, and during my six months in Paris, I met someone in the trademark field from American Home Products Corporation. They offered me a position there.
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