Visiting Professor Lateef Mtima Chairs Intellectual Property Program at Maine Law

Visiting Professor of Law Lateef Mtima, Director of the Institute for Intellectual Property and Social Justice at Howard University, chaired the two-hour program “Intellectual Property: Legal Issues and Social Justice Impact in the Information Age” on November 12. The program, organized with the assistance of Rita Heimes, Research Professor and Director of the Center for Law and Innovation, explored how patent, copyright and trademark law can be instruments of social justice and social engineering. Trademark and patent experts Phillip G. Hampton II (partner at Dickstein, Shapiro, Morin & Ochinsky, LLP, in Washington, D. C.; PTO Assistant Commissioner for Trademarks, 1994-98) and Thomas L. Irving (partner at Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner LLP, in Washington, D. C.) discussed how intellectual property law and lawyers can be agents for the socio-economic advancement of marginalized communities.