Pamela Samuelson is the Richard M. Sherman '74 Distinguished Professor of Law and Information Management at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

with a joint appointment in the

UC Berkeley School of Information The University of California, Berkeley, School of Information, also known as the UC Berkeley School of Information or the I School, is a graduate school and, created in 1994, the newest of the schools at the University of California, Berkele ...

and

Boalt Hall The University of California, Berkeley, School of Law (commonly known as Berkeley Law or UC Berkeley School of Law) is the law school of the University of California, Berkeley, a public research university in Berkeley, California. It is one ...

, the School of Law.

Education and early career

A 1971 graduate of the

University of Hawaii A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase ''universitas magistrorum et scholarium'', which ...

and a 1976 graduate of

Yale Law School Yale Law School (Yale Law or YLS) is the law school of Yale University, a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was established in 1824 and has been ranked as the best law school in the United States by '' U.S. News & Worl ...

, Samuelson practiced law as a litigation associate with the New York law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher before becoming an academic. From 1981 through June 1996 she was a member of the faculty at the

University of Pittsburgh School of Law The University of Pittsburgh School of Law (Pitt Law) was founded in 1895. It became a charter member of the Association of American Law Schools in 1900. Its primary home facility is the Barco Law Building. The school offers four degrees: Master ...

, from which she visited at

Columbia Columbia may refer to: * Columbia (personification), the historical female national personification of the United States, and a poetic name for America Places North America Natural features * Columbia Plateau, a geologic and geographic region in ...

Cornell Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teac ...

, and Emory Law Schools.

Academic career

She was appointed Visiting Professor of Law at

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States. Each class ...

for the Fall 2007 term. She is also co-director of the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology and a co-founder of Authors Alliance. She has been a member of the University of California at Berkeley School of Law faculty since 1996.

Technology and society

Her principal area of study is

intellectual property Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, cop ...

law. She has written and spoken about the challenges that new information technologies are posing for public policy and traditional legal regimes. She founded the Samuelson Law, Technology and Public Policy Clinic at the University of California at Berkeley in 2000, with funding from Mitch Kapor and with an endowment from Samuelson and her husband, Bob Glushko. She is a Fellow of the

Association for Computing Machinery The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional member ...

(ACM), a Contributing Editor of Communications of the ACM, a past Fellow of the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, an Honorary Professor of the

University of Amsterdam The University of Amsterdam (abbreviated as UvA, nl, Universiteit van Amsterdam) is a public research university located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The UvA is one of two large, publicly funded research universities in the city, the other bein ...

. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the

Electronic Frontier Foundation The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. The foundation was formed on 10 July 1990 by John Gilmore, John Perry Barlow and Mitch Kapor to promote Internet ...

and of the Open Source Applications Foundation, as well as a member of the Advisory Board for the

Electronic Privacy Information Center Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) is an independent nonprofit research center in Washington, D.C. EPIC's mission is to focus public attention on emerging privacy and related human rights issues. EPIC works to protect privacy, freedom ...

. In 2013, she was inducted into the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, ...

. In 2016, Samuelson cosigned an ''amicus curiae'' brief for "Intellectual Property Professors" in support of Star Athletica in ''

Star Athletica v. Varsity Brands ''Star Athletica, LLC v. Varsity Brands, Inc.'', 580 U.S. ___ (2017), was a U.S. Supreme Court case in which the court decided under what circumstances aesthetic elements of "useful articles" can be restricted by copyright law. The Court created a ...

''.

Awards and honors

* Samuelson received a MacArthur "genius award" in 1997. * She received the

Anita Borg Institute Women of Vision Award The Anita Borg Institute Women of Vision Awards honor exceptional technical women. Three awards are presented by the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology each year, recognizing women in the categories of Innovation, Leadership, and Social ...

for Social Impact in 2005. * On November 2, 2015, Samuelson gave the Brace Lecture (named for publisher

Donald Brace Donald Clifford Brace (December 27, 1881, West Winfield, New York – September 20, 1955) was an American publisher and founder of the publishing company Harcourt, Brace & Howe in 1919. Brace graduated from Columbia College of Columbia University ...

), an annual address by a distinguished figure in the field of domestic copyright law, at

Fordham University School of Law Fordham University School of Law is the law school of Fordham University. The school is located in Manhattan in New York City, and is one of eight ABA-approved law schools in that city. In 2013, 91% of the law school's first-time test taker ...

Works

* Samuelson, P., Davis, R., Kapor, M. D., & Reichman, J. H. (1994). ''Manifesto concerning the Legal Protection of Computer Programs'', A. ColUM. l. reV., 94, 2308.
"A Case Study on Computer Programs"
''Global dimensions of intellectual property rights in science and technology'', Part 3, Editors Mitchel B. Wallerstein, Mary Ellen Mogee, Roberta A. Schoen, National Academies Press, 1993,
"Towards More Sensible Anti-circumvention Regulations"
''Financial cryptography: 4th international conference'', FC 2000, Editor Yair Frankel, Springer, 2001,
"'The New Economy', and Information Technology Policy"
''American economic policy in the 1990s'', Editors Jeffrey A. Frankel, Peter R. Orszag, MIT Press, 2002, *Peter S. Menell,

Mark A. Lemley Mark A. Lemley (born c. 1966) is currently the William H. Neukom Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and the Director of the Stanford Law School Program in Law, Science & Technology, as well as a founding partner of the law firm of Durie Tang ...

, Robert P. Merges, Pamela Samuelson, ''Software and Internet law'', Editor Mark A. Lemley, Aspen Publishers, 2003,
"Should economics play a role in copyright law and policy?"
''Developments in the economics of copyright: research and analysis'', Editors Lisa Takeyama,

Wendy J. Gordon Wendy J. Gordon is an American lawyer who is currently the William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor at Boston University School of Law Boston University School of Law (Boston Law or BU Law) is the law school of Boston University, a priva ...

, Ruth Towse, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2005,
"Challenges in Mapping the Public Domain"
''The future of the public domain: identifying the commons in information law'', Editors Lucie M. C. R. Guibault, P. B. Hugenholtz, Kluwer Law International, 2006,

References

External links

"Pamela Samuelson"
''Huffington Post''

''O'Reilly Radar''
Prof. Samuelson's web page at the School of Information

Prof. Samuelson's web page at the Boalt Hall School of Law

Open Source Development and Distribution of Digital Information Webcast
{{DEFAULTSORT:Samuelson, Pamela Year of birth missing (living people) Living people UC Berkeley School of Law faculty Computer law scholars Copyright scholars Copyright activists American legal scholars MacArthur Fellows University of Hawaiʻi alumni Yale Law School alumni University of Pittsburgh faculty Columbia University faculty Cornell University faculty Emory University faculty Harvard Law School faculty Fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery People associated with Willkie Farr & Gallagher