The UW Law School will present its 2006 Kastenmeier Lecture on Friday, November 3, 2006, at 4 p.m.  Carl E. Gulbrandsen '81 will speak on "The Law in Action: What the Bayh-Dole Act Means to the University of Wisconsin and the State of Wisconsin, and to an Effective National Science Policy."

Gulbrandsen is the managing director of Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), the patent management organization for the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The Bayh-Dole Act gave universities the right to patent and market inventions made by faculty using government funds.  WARF has been in the forefront of using this set of rights to commercialize faculty inventions.  Senator Bayh will speak about the history of the adoption of the act and Gulbrandsen will discuss the impact and implications of the act for science, industry and the university.

WARF is a recipient of the 2003 National Medal of Technology. Gulbrandsen has a Ph.D. in physiology and a J.D. degree, both from UW-Madison. He is admitted to practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office and is a member of the Patent Public Advisory Board for the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Three additional speakers will contribute remarks: the Hon. Birch Bayh, U.S. Senator, Indiana (retired); Dr. Hector De Luca, Harry Steenbock Research Professor at the UW-Madison Department of Biochemistry; and Dr. T. Rockwell Mackie, of the Department of Medical Physics, Human Oncology, Biomeidical Engineering and Engineering Physics.

De Luca will describe the success story "Vitamin D and Derivatives", and Mackie the success story "Conformational Radiotherapy".

The event will take place in Room 2260 of the Law School, Godfrey & Kahn Hall. To RSVP, please contact Lynn Thompson at the Law School: lfthomp1@wisc.edu or 608-262-3833 by Monday, October 23, 2006.

The Robert W. Kastenmeier Lecture Series

This lecture is supported by the fund established to honor Robert W. Kastenmeier, an outstanding graduate of the University of Wisconsin Law School, who served with great distinction in the United States Congress from 1958-1990. During his tenure, Congressman Kastenmeier made special contributions to the improvement of the judiciary and to the field of intellectual property law. He drafted the rules for the House Committee on the Judiciary that were used for the impeachment of President Richard M. Nixon and drafted the articles of impeachment against Judge Harry Claiborne. In 1985, Kastenmeier received the Warren E. Burger Award, presented by the Institute for Court Management, and the Service Award of the National Center for State Courts. In 1988, he was honored by the American Judicature Society with its Justice Award for his contributions to improving the administration of justice.

The Kastenmeier Fund was created to recognize these contributions by fostering important legal scholarship in the fields of intellectual property, corrections, administration of justice, and civil liberties. It is a fitting tribute to the leadership of Robert W. Kastenmeier in these areas.

Submitted by on November 3, 2006

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