Contact Information
Curriculum Vita
Tracy Reilly
NCR Professor of Law & Technology and Director of the Program of Law & Technology
- Full-Time Faculty
Profile
Tracy Reilly teaches real property and intellectual property courses in the Program of Law & Technology at the School of Law. Before joining the faculty in 2006, she was a partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP in Chicago, where she worked in the areas of intellectual property, entertainment, advertising, e-commerce and corporate law. Prior to that she worked as in-house counsel for an independent record label, where she specialized in foreign licensing transactions, and at a boutique entertainment law firm in Chicago. Her clients have included Kraft, Sara Lee, Kellogg, Honeywell, Madison Dearborn Partners, United Airlines, the Chicago Sun-Times, Rand McNally and the estates of gospel star Mahalia Jackson and Charles Stepney, producer for Earth, Wind & Fire.
During practice, Professor Reilly also had extensive teaching experience as an adjunct professor at the Valparaiso University School of Law in Indiana, the University of Chicago Graham School of Business and Lewis University in Illinois. She clerked for the Honorable Wayne R. Andersen in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois and for the Honorable Anne M. Burke in the Appellate Court of Illinois.
She serves on the board of the Theatre Museum in New York, a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving the history of Broadway. She is also a member of the Copyright Society of the U.S.A. and the American Intellectual Property Law Association. Her scholarship is focused in the areas of trademark and copyright law with an emphasis on digital sampling and copyright infringement.
Courses Taught
LAW 6104 Real Property I
LAW 6400 Intellectual Property Law
LAW 6415 Copyright Law
LAW 6525 Digital Music Sampling & Copyright Infringement
LAW 6804 Real Property II
LAW 6926 Capstone: Trademark Prosecution and Practice
LAW 6971 Trademarks Unfair Competition
International Entertainment Law: DePaul College of Law Study Abroad Program (Prague, Czech Republic, Summers 2010 and 2011)
Degrees
J.D., summa cum laude, Valparaiso University School of Law, 1995
B.A., cum laude, Northern Illinois University, 1990
Areas of Law
Intellectual Property
Real Property
Selected Publications
Copyright and the Tragedy of the Common, 55 IDEA 155 (2014).
Betty Boop Almost Lost Her “Bling-Bling”: Fleischer Studios v. A.V.E.L.A. I and the Re-Emergence of Aesthetic Functionality in Trademark Merchandising Cases (PDF) 94 Journal of the Patent & Trademark Office Society 95 (2012).
Good Fences Make Good Neighboring Rights: The German Federal Supreme Court Rules on the Digital Sampling of Sound Recordings in Metall auf Metall (PDF), 13 Minn. J.L. Sci. & Tech. (2012).
Marks of Mayhem & Murder: When a Few Bad “Mongols” Spoil the Bunch, Should the Government Seize a Motorcycle Association’s Registered Trademark?, 7 Buff. Intell. Prop. L. J. 1 (2009).
The “Spiritual Temperature” of Contemporary Popular Music: An Alternative to the Legal Regulation of Death-Metal and Gangsta-Rap Lyrics, 11 Vanderbilt J. of Entertainment & Tech. L. 335 (2009).
Debunking the Top Three Myths of Digital Sampling: An Endorsement of the Bridgeport Music Court’s Attempt to Afford “Sound” Copyright Protection to Sound Recordings, 31 Columbia J. of L. & Arts 355 (2008).