Jennifer E. Rothman

AB, Princeton University
MFA, University of Southern California
JD, University of California, Los Angeles

Background

Jennifer E. Rothman is Professor of Law and the Joseph Scott Fellow at Loyola Law School, Los Angeles.  She joined the Loyola faculty from Washington University in St. Louis, where she was an Associate Professor of Law.  Professor Rothman teaches courses in the areas of Trademarks and Unfair Competition, Copyright, Intellectual Property Theory, Free Speech, Torts and the Right of Publicity.

Professor Rothman researches and writes primarily in the fields of intellectual property and constitutional law.  She has published numerous articles on a variety of intellectual property and constitutional law topics, including, among others, consideration of the use of custom in intellectual property; the use of substantive due process analysis to evaluate uses of copyrighted works; the treatment of sex in intellectual property law; the conflicts between copyright and right of publicity law; the move away from the confusion requirement in trademark law; and the true threats doctrine in First Amendment jurisprudence.  Her work regularly appears in top law reviews and journals, including most recently the Cornell Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, and Virginia Law Review.  Professor Rothman is recognized as a leading scholar in the intellectual property field and is frequently invited to speak on the topic.  Most recently, she has given talks at Columbia, Stanford, the University of Pennsylvania and UCLA.

Rothman received her AB from Princeton University where she received the Asher Hinds Book Prize and the Grace May Tilton Prize for her senior thesis on Strategies for Making Films from Written Fiction.

Rothman received an MFA in film production from the University of Southern California’s School of Cinema-Television, where she directed an award-winning documentary.  Rothman then worked in the film industry for a number of years, including positions at Paramount Pictures and Castle Rock Entertainment.

Rothman received her JD from UCLA where she graduated first in her class and won the Jerry Pacht Memorial Constitutional Law Award for her scholarship in that field.  Rothman served as law clerk to the Honorable Marsha S. Berzon of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco and then practiced as an entertainment and intellectual property litigator in Los Angeles. 

Selected Scholarship

• "The Inalienable Right of Publicity," 101 Georgetown Law Journal 185 (2012)
• "Sex Exceptionalism in Intellectual Property,"  23 Stanford Law & Policy Review 119 (2012) 
• "Custom, the Common Law and Intellectual Property," in Intellectual Property and the Common Law (Ed. Shyamkrishna Balganesh)  (Cambridge University Press 2012) (forthcoming)
• "Best Intentions: Best Practices Statements for Fair Use," 57 Journal of the Copyright Society of the U.S.A 371 (2010)
• "Liberating Copyright: Thinking Beyond Free Speech," 95 Cornell Law Review 463 (2010)
• "Sex In and Out of Intimacy," 59 Emory Law Journal 809 (2010) (co-authored with Laura A. Rosenbury)
• "Custom, Comedy and the Value of Dissent," 95 Virginia Law Review In Brief 19 (April 2009)
• "Why Custom Cannot Save Copyright's Fair Use Defense," 93 Virginia Law Review In Brief 243 (2008)
• "The Questionable Use of Custom in Intellectual Property," 93 Virginia Law Review 1899 (2007)
• "Initial Interest Confusion: The Diversion of Trademark Law," in Intellectual Property and Information Wealth (ed. Peter Yu, Praeger 2006).
• "Initial Interest Confusion: Standing at the Crossroads of Trademark Law," 27 Cardozo Law Review 105 (2005).
• "Copyright Preemption and the Right of Publicity," 36 UC Davis Law Review 199 (2002).
• "Freedom of Speech and True Threats," 25 Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy 283 (2001).