A paper that Peck co-authored with Burke Griggs and Yunpeng Xue of China, “Comparative Water Law and Management: The Yellow River Basin in Western China and the State of Kansas in the Western U.S.,” was presented by Xue on July 22, 2008, at a conference in Xian, China. Peck attended the annual meeting of the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation as the KU Law School Trustee on July 15-19 in Aspen, Colo. He received the “Quiet Rotarian” award, in recognition of his many years of service writing program notes for the Lawrence Rotary NEWS. Jean Phillips published “The Insanity of the Mens Rea Model: Due Process and the Abolition of the Insanity Defense” last spring in the Pace Law Review. Elinor Schroeder spoke in May at the 25th annual Carl A. Warns Jr. Labor and Employment Law Institute sponsored by the Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville. Her topic was “Employment at Will in 2008: What Do We Do Now?” She also published the 2008 supplement to her treatise, “Employment Law” (3d edition). Andrew Torrance published or had the following articles accepted for publication: n “Patents and the Regress of Useful Arts” (2008), Columbia Science and Technology Law Review, with W.M. Tomlinson, accepted for publication. n “Physiological Steps Doctrine” (2009), Berkeley Technology Law Journal, in editorial preparation. n “Open and Proprietary Biological Innovation in Human Genetic Enhancement” (2008), Washington University
Journal of Law and Policy, in editorial preparation (invited). n “Patenting Human Evolution” 56 Kansas Law Review 1075 (2008). n “An Extinction Bar to Patentability,” 20 Georgetown International Environmental Law Review 237 (2008). n “Are the Brookhill-Wilk Patents Impediments to Market Growth in Cybersurgery?” (2008), International Journal of Medical Robotics and Computer Assisted Surgery, with Thomas McLean. n “Metaphysics and Patenting Life,” 76 University of Missouri-Kansas City Law Review 363. Presentations: n “Metaphysics and Patenting Life,” Intellectual Property Scholars Roundtable, Drake University School of Law, Des Moines, Iowa, February. n “An Extinction Bar to Patentability,” Boston College School of Law, Boston, March. n “Protecting and Promoting Biotechnology Innovation” (guest lecture), Life Science Business, University of Kansas School of Business, Lawrence, March. n“Open Source Biology as an Antidote to Proprietary Human Evolution,” Conference on Open-Source and Proprietary Models of Innovation, Washington University School of Law, Saint Louis, Mo., April. n “Mental Steps and Physiological Steps,” Junior Scholars Workshop on Neuroscience and Law, Stanford Law School, Palo Alto, Calif., April. n “Climate Change and the Changing Legal Climate,” University Lecture Series at the Commons, Hall Center, University of Kansas, Lawrence, April. n “Gene Patents and Gene Concepts,” STS and IP Law, co-sponsored by Stanford Law School and Berkeley Law School, Saint Helena, Calif., May.
n “Patents and Disasters,” 2008 Joint Annual Meetings of Law and Society Association and Canadian Law and Society Association, Montreal, May. n “PatentSim™ for Chemical Engineers,” American Institute of Chemical Engineers 2008 Process Development Symposium, The Berkshires, Hancock, Mass., June. n “Patents and Regress in the Useful Arts,” Conference on Innovation and Communications Law, Turku University School of Law, Turku, Finland, July. n “Patents and Regress in the Useful Arts,” Harvard Business School-MIT User and Open Innovation Conference, Harvard Business School, Allston, Mass., August. n Speaker, Midwest Law & Society Conference, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis., September. n Speaker, University of Oregon School of Law, Eugene, Ore., September. Torrance discussed “The Patent Game” during an August interview on Atlanta’s WREK radio program “Inside the Black Box.” He was also interviewed in May by the ABC affiliate in Topeka about defenses to copyright infringement. Suzanne Valdez was appointed by Chancellor Robert Hemenway to serve on the Steering Committee for the third-cycle NCAA athletics certification process. She was also appointed chair of the diversity issues subcommittee for the self-study. In May, Valdez was appointed as a temporary Judge Pro Tem for Douglas County. Stephen Ware was invited to testify to the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition and Consumer
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