Lisa P. Ramsey
Professor of Law
Lisa Ramsey teaches and writes in the areas of intellectual property and international intellectual property. Before joining the faculty in 2004, she was an intellectual property litigation associate for four years at Gray Cary Ware & Freidenrich (now DLA Piper) in San Diego. She graduated Order of the Coif from UCLA School of Law and was a judicial law clerk for Judge Rebecca Beach Smith of the United States District Court in the Eastern District of Virginia.
Professor Ramsey’s current scholarship focuses on the practice of "brandjacking" on social networks—the unauthorized use of trademarks in usernames on sites such as Facebook or Twitter—and the potential conflict between international obligations to protect trademark rights and the right to freedom of expression. The latter topic will be covered in an article called "Free Speech and International Obligations to Protect Trademarks" that will be published by the Yale Journal of International Law in 2010.
Her recent publications include the law review articles "Increasing First Amendment Scrutiny of Trademark Law," 61 Southern Methodist University Law Review 381 (2008) and "Intellectual Property Rights in Advertising," 12 Michigan Telecommunications and Technology Law Review 189 (2006), and the book chapter "First Amendment Limitations on Trademark Rights" in volume three of Intellectual Property and Information Wealth: Issues and Practices in the Digital Age 147 (Peter Yu ed. Praeger 2007). Her article, "Descriptive Trademarks and the First Amendment," 70 Tennessee Law Review 1095 (2003), was judged by the editor of the Intellectual Property Law Review (Tripp ed., West 2004) to be one of the best intellectual property law review articles of 2003.
