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Ralph S. Brown, renowned copyright expert,
dies at age 85

There will be a memorial service on Sunday, Sept. 27, for Ralph S. Brown, the Simeon E. Baldwin Professor Emeritus of Law and the Frank E. Taplin Professorial Lecturer in Law, who died on June 17 after a brief illness. He was 85 years old.

The service honoring Professor Brown will be held at 5 p.m. at the Yale University Press, 302 Temple St. All are invited to attend.

Born in 1913 in Federalsburg, Maryland, Professor Brown earned a B.A. from Yale College in 1935, and an LL.B. cum laude from Yale Law School in 1939. At Yale, he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal and was an assistant editor of the Yale edition of Horace Walpole's correspondence.

Following law school, he was an associate with the New York City law firm of Wright, Gordon, Zachry & Parlin. In 1941, he moved to Washington, D.C., where he served as an attorney for the Office of Price Administration. He joined the Law School faculty as an assistant professor in 1946, following four years of service with the U.S. Navy. He was promoted to full professor in 1953. Beginning in 1984, after achieving emeritus status at Yale, he served as a visiting professor at New York Law School.

A nationally recognized expert in copyright and unfair competition, defamation issues, and issues of privacy and publicity, Professor Brown taught courses in government regulation and copyright law at Yale for over four decades. He has been described by his students and colleagues as a beloved teacher who took great interest in those who studied under him. His final course, "Copyright and Unfair Competition," was offered at the Law School in the fall of 1997. Up until the time of his death, he was engaged in evaluating final papers and writing recommendation letters for judicial clerkships on behalf of his students.

Professor Brown was the author of numerous scholarly articles on copyright and unfair competition, and was coeditor of the first casebook on that subject, titled "Cases on Copyright, Unfair Competition and Other Topics." Originally published in 1960, this seminal work had its sixth edition issued in 1995. He was an invited witness before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property on several occasions. In 1990, he was given a special award in recognition of his career of teaching and scholarly writing by the Copyright Society of the U.S.A.

Professor Brown was also the author of "Loyalty and Security," a study of the efficacy and fairness of the so-called "employment tests" given in the name of loyalty and security during the height of the Cold War. The book, which was published by the Yale University Press in 1958, earned Professor Brown the Gerard C. Henderson Memorial Prize from the Harvard Law School, which honors "the author of a critical and constructive work, of outstanding excellence, dealing with administrative law or other legal problems affecting government."

The legal scholar was also active in leadership and administrative service to Yale, to professional organizations, and to the town of Guilford, Connecticut, where he made his home.

At the Law School, he served as associate dean 1965-70. He was a member of the board of governors of the Yale University Press 1968-88, and he was an honorary governor at the time of his death. He chaired the Press' Committee on Publications 1966-79 and Yale's Advisory Committee on Investor Responsibility 1981-83.

Professor Brown was a member of the national board of directors of the American Civil Liberties Union 1955-91, and served on its executive committee 1970-74 and 1986-90. He was a member of the Council of the American Association of University Professors 1958-60 and 1964-67. He served as president of that organization 1968-70; as its general counsel 1983-86; and as chair of its Committee A (Academic Freedom and Tenure) 1973-75. He was also a founding board member of the Society of American Law Teachers.

From 1959 to 1965, he was executive director of the Walter E. Meyer Research Institute of Law, a foundation which supported scholarly research with the objective of "securing to humanity a greater degree of justice." During his tenure, the institute made grants totaling approximately $2.5 million to about 100 grantees.

Professor Brown was a selectman in the Town of Guilford 1953-57, and served for many years on its Planning and Zoning Commission and on the Charter Revision Commissions of 1959 and 1991. From 1963 to 1994 he was on the board of corporators of The Guilford Savings Bank. He was on the board of Chestnut Hill Concerts in Madison, Connecticut, and was a member of Keyart's Klamberers, a shoreline hiking group.

He is survived by his wife, the former Elizabeth Mills; three daughters, Lauren, of Branford, Connecticut; Valerie, of Brooklyn, New York; and Lila, of Frankfurt, Germany; and four grandchildren. He is also survived by two brothers, Elliott, of Naples, Florida, and Huey, of Snow Hill, Maryland; two sisters, Sarah McCulloch of Guilford, Connecticut, and Barbara Pace of Chatauqua, New York; and numerous nieces and nephews.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Ralph S. Brown Fund for Student Needs at the Yale Law School Fund, P.O. Box 208341, New Haven, CT 06520-8341.


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