Toledo Law Student Named Top Oralist in International Moot Court Competition
June 1, 2017
For the last several years, Toledo Law has sent a team of law students to China to
compete in the Beijing Foreign Studies University-Wanhuida Cup Intellectual Property
Moot Court Competition. This year’s team – Victor Aberdeen ’18, Jason Csehi ’17,
Alex Bayoneto ’18, and Patrick Charest ’17 – competed against teams from China, Australia,
Taiwan, and the United States. The team was coached by Bernadette Delgado ’17, who
competed in last year’s competition.
The team faced incisive questions from the competition judges, who were IP attorneys, law professors, and the chief judge of the District IP Court of China. In particular, Charest’s oral arguments and responses to questions were praised by the judges, who named him one of four “Best Oralists” in the competition.
According to Coach Delgado, Charest’s win was well-deserved. “Patrick had a solid grasp of the problem and both sides of the argument,” she said. “He was very persuasive in his arguments and knew the applicable Chinese law and cases well enough to support his position.”
Because this competition brings together both native and non-native English speakers to argue unique questions of Chinese intellectual property law, the judging is different from a typical moot court competition. “The judges give greater weight to the quality and substance of the answer rather than the style of the oralist,” explained Professor Llewellyn Gibbons, faculty advisor to the team. “Patrick's answers impressed a panel of Chinese law experts with his mastery of Chinese intellectual property law as well as principles of trademark law drawn from the U.S., the E.U., and the Paris Convention.”