CIPIL Seminar: 'Dialogues of Authenticity'

Speaker: Laura A. Heymann (William & Mary Law School)

Location: B16

Abstract: Artists operating under a studio model, such as Andy Warhol, have frequently been described as reducing their work to statements of authorship, indicated by the signature finally affixed to the work. By contrast, luxury goods manufacturers decry as inauthentic and counterfeit the handbags produced during off-shift hours using the same materials and craftsmanship as the authorized goods produced hours earlier. The distinction between authentic and inauthentic often turns on nothing more than a statement of authorship. Intellectual property law purports to value such statements of authenticity, but no statement has value unless it is accepted as valid by its audience, a determination that depends on shared notions of what authenticity means as well as a common understanding of what authenticity designates.

Speaker: Laura Heymann is Vice-Dean at William & Mary Law School, where she is also a Professor of Law. She is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall), where she was elected to Order of the Coif and served as the Book Review Editor on the California Law Review. Prior to her appointment, Professor Heymann was the inaugural Frank H. Marks Visiting Associate Professor of Law and Administrative Fellow in the Intellectual Property Law Program at The George Washington University Law School. She has also served as an assistant general counsel at America Online, Inc.; as an associate at Wilmer, Cutler and Pickering in Washington, D.C.; and as a law clerk to the Hon. Patricia M. Wald of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Prior to attending law school, Professor Heymann worked as an assistant editor at St. Martin's Press in New York. She received her B.A. in English, magna cum laude, from Yale. Professor Heymann was selected by the 2008 graduating class as the recipient of the Walter L. Williams, Jr., Memorial Teaching Award and was the 2012 recipient of the College's Thomas Jefferson Teaching Award. She received a Plumeri Award for Faculty Excellence in 2012 and was the Class of 2014 Professor of Law from 2011 to 2014.