Briefly Noted

Pitt Holds Information Session About Its Five Campuses

The University of Pittsburgh will hold its Five-Campus College Fair on March 5 in the Connolly Ballroom, Alumni Hall. Representatives from the Bradford, Greensburg, Johnstown, Titusville, and Oakland campuses will be available to discuss the college selection process, scholarships, financial aid, and Pitt staff and faculty tuition benefits.

The free event will be held from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and from 5 to 7 p.m. It is open to University faculty and staff and their families.

Pitt Plans Lecture on Industrial Design Patents Feb. 26

Intellectual property patents will be the focus of the University of Pittsburgh’s 2009 Distinguished Intellectual Property Law Lecture featuring Annette Kur, senior researcher at Germany’s Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Intellectual Property, Competition, and Tax Law, at 4 p.m. Feb. 26 in Pitt’s Barco Law Building.

Kur’s talk is titled “The European Community Design Right: A Uniquely Tailored System for Protecting Industrial Designs.”

Kur, at the forefront of international legal protection for industrial design for more than 25 years, spearheaded the Max Planck working group proposal that formed the basis of the European Union’s Community Design Right Legislation. She is president of the International Association for the Advancement of Teaching and Research in Intellectual Property, a professor at the University of Stockholm, and a visiting professor in the Hauser Global Law School Program in New York University’s School of Law.

Immediately following the lecture, a group of panelists will discuss the future of global industrial design protection. Panelists are Janice M. Mueller, a professor in Pitt’s School of Law and author of An Introduction to Patent Law (Aspen, 2003); Donald S. Chisum, an expert on patent law and intellectual property rights as well as coauthor of Understanding Intellectual Property (IrwinMcGraw Hill, 1992); and Daniel H. Brean, an intellectual property attorney with the Webb Law Firm in Pittsburgh.

The program is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Lila Turner Steffy at 412-648-1305 or steffy@pitt.edu.

—Anthony M. Moore

Novelist William Henry Lewis to Speak Feb. 26

Novelist William Henry Lewis will give an evening reading at the University of Pittsburgh at 8:30 p.m. Feb. 26 in 501 Cathedral of Learning. The event is part of the 2008-09 Pittsburgh Contemporary Writers Series.

Lewis is the author of the short story collection I Got Somebody in Staunton (Amistad/Harper Collins, 2005), which was named one of four finalists for the 2006 PEN/Faulkner Prize for Fiction, and In the Arms of Our Elders (Carolina Wren Press, 1995). His works of fiction have appeared in such publications as Ploughshares, African American Review, and Best American Short Stories 1996. His works of nonfiction have appeared in Black Issues in Higher Education, Washington Post Book World, and O Magazine.

All events in the Writers Series are free and open to the public. For more information, contact Jeff Oaks at oaks@pitt.edu.

—Anthony M. Moore