The University of Colorado at Boulder Law School

Tenured and Tenure-Track Faculty
Philip J. Weiser

University of Colorado Law School
404 Wolf Law Building
401 UCB
Boulder, CO  80309-0401
Phone: (303) 735-2733
E-mail: phil.weiser@colorado.edu

Curriculum Vitae:  View (PDF format)

Bio:

Professor Phil Weiser is a professor of law and telecommunications at the University of Colorado.  At CU, he has worked to establish a national center of excellence in telecommunications and technology law, founding the Journal on Telecommunications & High Technology Law and the Silicon Flatirons Center for Law, Technology, and Entrepreneurship as well as writing and teaching in the areas of competition policy, innovation policy, and Internet policy.  Over the last ten years, Weiser has co-authored two books (Digital Crossroads: American Telecommunications Policy in the Internet Age (MIT Press 2005) and Telecommunications Law and Policy (Carolina Academic Press 2006), numerous articles (in both law journals and publications such as the Washington Post and Foreign Affairs), and has testified before both houses of Congress.  He currently serves as a co-Chair of the Colorado Innovation Council and served as the lead agency reviewer for the Federal Trade Commission as part of the 2008 Presidential Transition.

Prior to joining the CU faculty, Professor Weiser served as senior counsel to the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Antitrust Division at the United States Department of Justice, advising him primarily on telecommunications matters.  Before his appointment at the Justice Department, Weiser served as a law clerk to Justices Byron R. White and Ruth Bader Ginsburg at the United States Supreme Court and to Judge David Ebel at the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals.  Weiser graduated with high honors from both the New York University School of Law and Swarthmore College.

Visiting Professorships:
New York University, Fall 2008
University of Pennsylvania Law School, Fall 2006
Princeton Law and Public Affairs Program, Fall 2001 & Spring 2002

Published Books:
Telecommunications Law and Policy (Carolina Academic Press 2006) (Benjamin, Lichtman & Shelanski).

Digital Crossroads: American Telecommunications Policy in the Internet Age (MIT Press 2005) (with Jon Nuechterlein). For the table of contents check here; for Chapter One check here; for a paper based on the book check here; for a radio interview based on the book, check here; and for a streaming video of a lecture based on the book, check here.

Monographs:
The Untapped Promise of Wireless Spectrum (The Brookings Institution 2008).
A Framework For National Broadband Policy (Aspen Institute 2008).
The Future of Video: New Approaches to Communications Regulation (Aspen Institute 2007).

Clearing the Air: Convergence and the Safety Enterprise (Aspen Institute 2006).

Policy Briefs:
Report from Center for the New West Conference on Putting Network Neutrality in Perspective (2007)
Toward Property Rights in Spectrum (2006) (with Dale Hatfield)
Toward a Next Generation Architecture for Public Safety Communications (2006) (with Brad Bernthal and Dale Hatfield)
Report from Center from the New West Conference on Universal Service (2005)

Popular Press:
Broadband For All, Rocky Mountain News (April 12, 2008).
A Third Way on Net Neutrality, New Atlantis (Summer 2006).
Swiftly Changing Market Creates Regulatory Challenges, Rocky Mountain News (Sat. Dec. 10, 2005)
Which Broadband Nation?, Foreign Affairs (Sept/Oct 2005).
The Behemoth Is Dead. Long Live the Behemoth, Washington Post (Sunday, February 27, 2005).

Testimony:
Hearing of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Energy and Commerce on Competition in the Communications Marketplace: How Technology Is Changing the Structure of the Industry.

Federal Trade Commission Hearing on Broadband Connectivity Competition Policy

Hearing of U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation on The 700 MHz Auction: Public Safety and Competition.

Litigated Pro Bono Cases
Warnick v. Boother, 425 F.3d 842 (10th Cir. 2005)
Sally Beauty Co., Inc. v. Beautyco., Inc., 72 F.3d 1186 (10th Cir. 2004)
Hammons v. Saffle, 348 F.3d 1250 (10th Cir. 2003)
Kikumura v. Hurley, 242 F.3d 950, 962-63 (10th Cir. 2001)

Special Master Service
Development of a performance assurance plan for the Colorado PUC

Articles

Regulating Interoperability: Lessons From AT&T, Microsoft, and Beyond, 76 Antitrust L.J. 271 (2009).

Weiser (with Marius Schwartz), Introduction to a Special Issue on Network Neutrality, 8 Review of Network Economics 1 (2009).

The Future of Internet Regulation, __U. C. Davis Law Review __ (2009).

Institutional Design, FCC Reform, and the Hidden Side of the Administrative State, __ Administrative Law Review __ (2009).

The Next Frontier for Network Neutrality, 50 Admin. L. Rev. 273 (2008).

Weiser (with Dale Hatfield), Spectrum Policy Reform and the Next Frontier of Property Rights, 15 Geo. Mason L. Rev. 549 (2008). The scarcity of wireless spectrum reflects a costly failure of regulation. In practice, large swaths of spectrum are vastly underused or used for low value activities, but the regulatory system prevents innovative users from gaining access to such spectrum through marketplace transactions. In calling for the propertyzing of swaths of spectrum as a replacement for the current command-and-control system, many scholars have wrongfully assumed the simplicity of how such a regime would work in practice. In short, many scholars suggest that spectrum property rights can easily borrow key principles from trespass law, reasoning that since property rights work well for land, they can work well for spectrum rights as well. But as we explain, spectrum is not the same as land, and a poorly designed property rights regime for spectrum might even be worse than the legacy model of spectrum regulation abstract

Weiser (with Dale N. Hatfield), Property Rights in Spectrum: A Reply to Hazlett, 15 Geo. Mason L. Rev. 1025 (2008).

Reexamining the Legacy of Dual Regulation: Reforming Dual Merger Review by the DOJ and the FCC, 61 Fed. Comm. L.J. 167 (2008) (Conference: The Enduring Lessons of the Breakup of AT&T: A Twenty-Five Year Retrospective). (2008).

Alfred Kahn As A Case Study of A Political Entrepreneur, 7 Review of Network Economics 601 (2008).

Weiser (with Dale Hatfield and Brad Bernthal), The Future of 9-1-1: New Technologies and the Need for Reform, 6 J. on Telecomm. & High Tech. L. 213 (2008).

Communicating During Emergencies: Toward Interoperability and Effective Information Management, 59 Fed. Comm. L.J. 547 (2007).

Weiser (with Mark Lemley), Should Property or Liability Rules Govern Information?, 85 Tex. L. Rev. 783 (2007).

Weiser (with Dale Hatfield), In Pursuit of a Next Generation Network for Public Safety Communications, 16 CommLaw Conspectus - Journal of Communications Law and Policy 97 (2007). In its rules for the auction of 700 MHz spectrum freed up as a result of the digital transition, the FCC has embraced the concept of a private/public partnership as an important step towards the development of a nationwide interoperable broadband communications network for public safety. For this effort to move forward successfully, however, policymakers must have realistic expectations about the time and effort it will take to implement it effectively. In particular, as the Article explains, there are notable challenges in developing a new policy direction that will transition public safety agencies from their current reliance on antiquated equipment that they own to one where they will become smart users of advanced information and communications technology provided by commercial vendors. abstract

Weiser (with Kyle Dixon), A Digital Age Communications Act Paradigm for Federal-State Relations, 4 J. Telecomm. & High Tech. L. 321 (2006).

Weiser (with John Gastil), Jury Service as an Invitation to Citizenship: Assessing the Civic Value of Institutionalized Deliberation, 34 Policy Studies J. 605 (2006).

The Relationship of Antitrust and Regulation In A Deregulatory Era, 50 Antitrust Bulletin 549 (2005).

Weiser (with Dale Hatfield), Policing the Spectrum Commons, 74 Fordham L. Rev. 101 (2005).

The Ghost of Telecommunications Past, 103 Mich. L. Rev. 101 (2005) (reviewing Paul Starr’s The Creation of the Media) (2004).

The Internet, Innovation, and Intellectual Property Policy, 103 Colum. L. Rev. 534 (2003).

Weiser (with Joseph Farrell), Modularity, Vertical Integration and Open Access Policies: Towards A Convergence of Antitrust and Regulation in The Internet Age, 17 Harv. J. L. & Tech. (2003).

Toward A Next Generation Regulatory Regime, 35 Loy. L. Rev. 101 (2003).

Goldwasser, the Telecom Act, and Reflections on Antitrust Remedies, 55 Admin. L. Rev. 1 (2003).

Law and Information Platforms, 1 J. Telecomm. & High Tech. L. 1 (2002).

Cooperative Federalism, Federal Common Law, and The Enforcement of the Telecom Act, 66 N.Y.U. L. Rev. (2001).

Book Chapters

Making The World Safe For Standard Setting in The Impact of Globalization on the United States. Vol. 2, Law and Governance, Beverly Crawford, ed. (2008). The stance of antitrust oversight of standard setting activities remains a work-in-progress. Over time, antitrust authorities have grown increasingly hospitable to cooperative standard setting efforts whereby jointly developed standards will facilitate the development of new products or services. In the information industries, such standards are ubiquitous and, moreover, are set by international standard setting organizations (SSOs) like the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). To be successful, SSOs must develop strategies to prevent firms from patenting technologies used in official standards and charging exorbitant royalties once a standard is adopted. In particular, SSOs face a range of options in terms of policies that govern the use of patents in official standards - even within the popular strategy of mandating reasonable and non-discriminatory (RAND) access to patents necessary to practice a standard. With multi-jurisdictional oversight of SSOs, the role of antitrust law - if inconsistent and overly aggressive - could be counterproductive. abstract

Courses: