Intellectual Property Rights Selected as 2024-2025 National Policy Debate Topic

On January 10, 2024, ballots from 38 states were counted.  These ballots were tabulated from the National Speech and Debate Association, National Catholic Forensic League, National Association for Urban Debate Leagues and Nation Debate Coaches Association for the 2024-2025 national high school Policy debate topic. A total of 42 states and organizations participated. A bit of background on the process:  three stages of voting were used to determine the winning topic. That list included “Agricultural Subsidies,” “American Arctic Policy” and “Critical Infrastructure” before it was narrowed down to two topics.

Here is the full wording of each topic for the National Policy Debate Topic Area Balloting:

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS

Resolved: The United States federal government should significantly strengthen its protection of domestic intellectual property rights in copyrigh , patents, and/or trademarks.

NUCLEAR WEAPONS REDUCTION

Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially reduce the size and/or restrict the roles of its nuclear weapons arsenal.

Intellectual Property Rights was selected over Nuclear Weapons Reduction by a vote of 25-17.  Here is a map of the voting during 2024-2025 that resulted in intellectual property rights as the winning topic:

Do you work in IP?  Calling all attorneys to share their knowledge, expertise, anecdotes and insights for SVUDL students! Your experience in property rights, patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets will be invaluable as our students navigate this powerful and fascinating area of the law right here in Silicon Valley. We’re going to be scheduling topic lectures for our students over the summer and early fall - reach out to us today if you would like to help out!