CILP Distinguished Visitors
Dr Matthew Rimmer is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow, working on Intellectual Property and Climate Change. He is an associate professor at the ANU College of Law, and an associate director of the Australian Centre for Intellectual Property in Agriculture (ACIPA). He holds a BA (Hons) and a University Medal in literature, and a LLB (Hons) from the Australian National University. Rimmer received a PhD in law from the University of New South Wales for his dissertation on The Pirate Bazaar: The Social Life of Copyright Law. He is a member of the ANU Climate Change Institute. Rimmer has published widely on copyright law and information technology, patent law and biotechnology, access to medicines, clean technologies, plain packaging of tobacco products, and traditional knowledge. His work is archived at SSRN Abstracts and Bepress Selected Works.
Rimmer is the author of Digital Copyright and the Consumer Revolution: Hands off my iPod (Edward Elgar, 2007). With a focus on recent US copyright law, the book charts the consumer rebellion against the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act 1998 (US) and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act 1998 (US). Rimmer explores the significance of key judicial rulings and considers legal controversies over new technologies, such as the iPod, TiVo, Sony Playstation II, Google Book Search, and peer-to-peer networks. The book also highlights cultural developments, such as the emergence of digital sampling and mash-ups, the construction of the BBC Creative Archive, and the evolution of the Creative Commons. Rimmer has also participated in a number of policy debates over Film Directors’ copyright, the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement 2004, the Copyright Amendment Act 2006 (Cth), the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 2011, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. He has been an advocate for Fair IT Pricing in Australia.
Rimmer is the author of Intellectual Property and Biotechnology: Biological Inventions (Edward Elgar, 2008). This book documents and evaluates the dramatic expansion of intellectual property law to accommodate various forms of biotechnology from micro-organisms, plants, and animals to human genes and stem cells. It makes a unique theoretical contribution to the controversial public debate over the commercialisation of biological inventions. Rimmer also edited the thematic issue of Law in Context, entitled Patent Law and Biological Inventions (Federation Press, 2006). Rimmer was also a chief investigator in an Australian Research Council Discovery Project, “Gene Patents In Australia: Options For Reform” (2003-2005), an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant, “The Protection of Botanical Inventions (2003), and an Australian Research Council Discovery Project, “Promoting Plant Innovation in Australia” (2009-2011). Rimmer has participated in inquiries into plant breeders’ rights, gene patents, and access to genetic resources.
Rimmer is a co-editor of a collection on access to medicines entitled Incentives for Global Public Health: Patent Law and Access to Essential Medicines (Cambridge University Press, 2010) with Professor Kim Rubenstein and Professor Thomas Pogge. The work considers the intersection between international law, public law, and intellectual property law, and highlights a number of new policy alternatives – such as medical innovation prizes, the Health Impact Fund, patent pools, open source drug discovery, and the philanthropic work of the (Red) Campaign, the Gates Foundation, and the Clinton Foundation. Rimmer is also a co-editor of Intellectual Property and Emerging Technologies: The New Biology (Edward Elgar, 2012).
Rimmer is a researcher and commentator on the topic of intellectual property, public health, and tobacco control. He has undertaken research on trade mark law and the plain packaging of tobacco products, and given evidence to an Australian parliamentary inquiry on the topic.
Rimmer is the author of a monograph, Intellectual Property and Climate Change: Inventing Clean Technologies (Edward Elgar, September 2011). This book charts the patent landscapes and legal conflicts emerging in a range of fields of innovation – including renewable forms of energy, such as solar power, wind power, and geothermal energy; as well as biofuels, green chemistry, green vehicles, energy efficiency, and smart grids. As well as reviewing key international treaties, this book provides a detailed analysis of current trends in patent policy and administration in key nation states, and offers clear recommendations for law reform. It considers such options as technology transfer, compulsory licensing, public sector licensing, and patent pools; and analyses the development of Climate Innovation Centres, the Eco-Patent Commons, and environmental prizes, such as the L-Prize, the H-Prize, and the X-Prizes. Rimmer is currently working on a manuscript, looking at green branding, trade mark law, and environmental activism.
Rimmer has also a research interest in intellectual property and traditional knowledge. He has written about the misappropriation of Indigenous art, the right of resale, Indigenous performers’ rights, authenticity marks, biopiracy, and population genetics.
Prior to joining the University of Cambridge, Professor Bently held the positions of Lecturer in Law at the University of Keele and Professor of Law at King’s College, London. He has been the Yong Shook Lin Visiting Professor at the National University of Singapore (2007), Visiting Professor of European Law at Columbia University (2008) and is currently Visiting Distinguished Professor, University of Toronto (2014). He is an Associate Tenant at 11 South Square, Grays Inn. Professor Bently is the Series Editor for Cambridge Intellectual Property and Information Law, a member of the Editorial Board of the European Intellectual Property Review, the Media and Arts Law Review, and Script-ed (on-line publication, University of Edinburgh). Professor Bently is also a member of the Copyright Expert Panel, Strategic Advisory Board on Intellectual Property (2008-10)., a Council Member of the Intellectual Property Institute an Executive Board Member of the British Literary and Artistic Copyright Association, and a member of the Advisory Board for the Institute of Brands and Innovation Law, UCL, the Osgoode Hall IP Programme. He is also an Honorary Legal Advisor to the Royal Historical Society. Professor Bently is also a member of ITER, Sophistication vs. Transparency, International Network (2002-5), organised by University of Nijmegen/University of Amsterdam and the Wittem Group of European Copyright Academics Considering a European Copyright Code and a member of the AHRB Copyright Network Workshop, organised by Birkbeck College, London (2004-7).
Prof. Ruth Okediji teaches contracts, international intellectual property (IP), copyright, trademarks, and IP and development. She is recognized worldwide as one of the foremost experts on international IP law and international economic regulation. Before joining the Law School in 2003, she was the Edith Gaylord Presidential Professor of Law at the University of Oklahoma College of Law, and she served on the Oklahoma Public Employee Relations Board at the appointment of Gov. Frank Keating. She has been a visiting professor at Duke University School of Law, the University of Haifa Law School, the University of St. Thomas School of Law, and the University of Tilburg Law School and has held visiting research positions at Harvard Law School and the Max Planck Institute for International and Comparative Patent, Copyright, Trademark and Unfair Competition Law in Munich, Germany. Her scholarship focuses on issues of innovation policy, economic development, and global knowledge governance in the context of international institutions and public international law. She is co-author of a leading copyright casebook, Copyright in a Global Information Economy (Aspen, 3rd ed., 2011), and co-author of a seminal casebook, International Patent Law and Policy (Aspen, 2013). Two additional books, Global Perspectives on Patent Law (with Margo Bagley) and Exceptions and Limitations in International Copyright Law, are forthcoming (Oxford, 2013). She has also authored an extensive array of articles, commissioned papers, and book chapters, and has been a reviewer and editor of the Journal of World Intellectual Property since 2009. Prof. Okediji has been acknowledged nationally and internationally for her research and professional service and is regularly cited for her work on IP-related issues in developing and least-developed countries. She has served as a policy advisor on the impact of IP protection on development goals for many governments and inter-governmental organizations. She also has been a consultant for the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development, the U.N. Development Program, and the World Intellectual Property Organization and has directed research and technical assistance projects in Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Caribbean. Since joining the University of Minnesota, Prof. Okediji has held the inaugural Solly Robins Distinguished Research Fellowship and a McKnight Fellowship. She has served on the doctoral committees at the University of British Columbia, Duke University Law School, the University of Toronto, and the Graduate Institute in Geneva, and is a member of the Executive Board of the National Order of the Coif. In addition, she has chaired the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) Committee on Law and Computers, its Committee on Intellectual Property, and its Nominating Committee for Officers and Members of the Executive Committee. In 2011-2012, she was a member of the National Academies Board on Science, Technology and Policy Committee on the Impact of Copyright Policy on Innovation in the Digital Era. Over the course of her career, Prof. Okediji has received numerous teaching, service, and professionalism honors, including the Regents’ Superior Teaching Award, the Student Bar Association’s Outstanding Professor Award, and the Professor Most Likely to Go Beyond the Call of Duty recognition. She was elected to the prestigious American Law Institute in 2008. A graduate of the University of Jos (LL.B.) and Harvard Law School (LL.M., S.J.D.), Prof. Okediji is licensed to practise law in New York and Minnesota.
Prof. Andrew W. Torrance received his Ph.D. in Biology from Harvard University in 1997, J.D. from Harvard Law School in 2000, and Bachelor of Science from Queen’s University (Canada) in 1991. He joined the University of Kansas School of Law in 2005 as Associate Professor. Prof. Torrance teaches and conducts research in patent law, intellectual property, innovation, food and drug regulation, biotechnology law, biodiversity law, biolaw, and empirical, experimental, and big data approaches to the law. Specific research foci include open, user, and collaborative innovation, design, and legal issues surrounding genes, biotechnology, genetically-modified organisms, synthetic biology, conservation biology, and de-extinction. Prof. Torrance has given more than 100 scholarly presentations at numerous universities, research organizations, governments, and intergovernmental agencies in seven countries. His invited presentations have included a Google TechTalk at Google’s main Mountain View campus in California (posted on the Google TechTalk channel as “The Patent Game: Experiments in the Cathedral of Law”), a research talk at Microsoft Research in Seattle, two speeches at the Organization for Cooperation and Development (“OECD”) at their Paris, France, headquarters, keynote addresses for Genome Canada and the European Policy for Intellectual Property (EPIP) annual conference, and two presentations to the National Academies in Washington, D.C. Prof. Torrance has published more than 25 scholarly works. His scholarship has appeared in such journals as the Yale Journal of Law and Technology, the Stanford Technology Law Review, the Columbia Science and Technology Law Review and the Berkeley Technology Law Journal. He was commissioned in 2012 to write a report for the National Academies. Torrance and his research have been regularly featured in the media, including NPR, Forbes, the Seattle Times, San Francisco Chronicle and Voice of Russia.
Prof. Johanna Gibson is the Director of the independent research charity, the Intellectual Property Institute. She is Chair of the Intellectual Property Office Expert Advisory Committee on Trade and Development and a member of the DG-Research and Innovation expert panel on international knowledge transfer. Prof. Gibson holds first class degrees in cultural and critical theory, animal sciences, and law. Before joining CCLS, she practised law in Melbourne, Australia at Allens Arthur Robinson, specialising in Intellectual Property, Media and Communications Law and Competition Law.
Prof. Mark McKenna’s research and teaching interests focus on intellectual property, primarily trademark, copyright, and the right of publicity. He has recently published trademark-related work in a number of leading American law reviews, including the Michigan Law Review, Stanford Law Review, and Virginia Law Review, and he is a co-author of The Law of Intellectual Property (Aspen Law & Business, 3d ed. 2011). Prof. McKenna’s latest projects deal with market definition in intellectual property, concerns about intergenerational equity, and the role of the placebo effect in intellectual property. He also currently serves as chair of the intellectual property section of the Association of American Law Schools. A graduate of Virginia Law School, Prof. McKenna litigated trademark and copyright cases with an intellectual property firm in Chicago before entering academia.
Rebecca S. Eisenberg is a graduate of Stanford University and Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, where she was articles editor of the California Law Review. Following law school she served as law clerk for Chief Judge Robert F. Peckham on the United States District Court for the Northern District of California and then practiced law as a litigator in San Francisco. She joined the University of Michigan Law School faculty in 1984. Prof. Eisenberg regularly teaches courses in patent law, trademark law, and torts and has taught courses on legal regulation of science and legal issues in the Human Genome Project. She has written and lectured extensively about patent law as applied to biotechnology and the role of intellectual property at the public-private divide in research science, publishing in scientific journals as well as law reviews. She spent the 1999-2000 academic year as a visiting professor of law, science and technology at Stanford Law School. She has received grants from the program on Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications of the Human Genome Project from the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Biological and Environmental Research for her work on private appropriation and public dissemination of DNA sequence information. Prof. Eisenberg has played an active role in public policy debates concerning the role of intellectual property in biomedical research. She is a member of the Advisory Committee to the Director of the National Institutes of Health, the Panel on Science, Technology and Law of the National Academies, and the Board of Directors of the Stem Cell Genomics and Therapeutics Network in Canada.
An internationally prominent authority on issues related to high technology, Prof. Dan L. Burk is the author of numerous papers on the legal and societal impact of new technologies, including articles on scientific misconduct, on the regulation of biotechnology, and on the intellectual property implications of global computer networks. Prior to his arrival at the University of Minnesota, Professor Burk taught at Seton Hall University in New Jersey. From 1991 to 1993, he was a Teaching Fellow at Stanford Law School. He has also taught as a visitor at George Mason University, at Cardozo Law School, the Ohio State University Programme at Oxford, and the Program for Management in the Network Economy at the Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Piacenza, Italy.
After graduating from law school, Prof. Peter S. Menell clerked for Judge Jon O. Newman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. In addition to teaching at Boalt, Prof. Menell teaches an annual intensive course on U.S. patent law at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, has organized more than a dozen intellectual property education programs for the federal judiciary, and has visited at Harvard and Stanford law schools. Professor Menell has published Intellectual Property in the New Technological Age (with Robert Merges and Mark Lemley, 1997; 2nd ed. 2000), Software and Internet Law (with Mark Lemley, Robert Merges, and Pamela Samuelson, 2000), Property Law & Policy: A Comparative Institutional Perspective (with John Dwyer, 1998), and Environmental Law and Policy (with Richard Stewart, 1994). He founded and supervises the Annual Review of Law & Technology, a special issue of the Berkeley Technology Law Journal. His recent publications in the intellectual property law field include “Sound Recordings, Works for Hire, and the Termination-of-Transfers Time Bomb,” J. Copyright Society (with D. Nimmer) (2002); “Intellectual Property,” International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (2001); “Foreword,” Annual Review of Law & Technology, 16 Berkeley Technology Law Journal 1 (2001) (with C. Cretsinger); Economic Implications of State Sovereign Immunity from Infringement of Federal Intellectual Property Rights, 33 Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review 1399 (2000); and “An Epitaph for Traditional Copyright Protection of Network Features of Computer Software,” 43 Antitrust Bulletin 651 (Fall-Winter 1998).
Prof. Neil Weinstock Netanel is an internationally prominent scholar in the fields of copyright, international intellectual property, and Internet governance. His scholarship has focused on copyright’s historical and theoretical foundations, from both a domestic and comparative law perspective. His most recent work examines the tension between copyright and free speech and critiques the notion of cyberspace self-governance. Prof. Netanel has published in the Yale Law Journal, Stanford Law Review, California Law Review, Texas Law Review, and other leading law journals. He is a co-editor of “The Commodification of Information” (Kluwer Law International) and completed a book entitled, “Copyright’s Paradox: Property in Expression/Freedom of Expression,” to be published by Oxford University Press. Prof. Netanel has also taught at the law schools of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Haifa University, Tel-Aviv University, and New York University.
After law school, Prof. Lawrence Lessig clerked for Judge Richard Posner of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals and Justice Antonin Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court. Before joining the Stanford Law faculty, he was a Professor of Law at the University of Chicago from 1991 to 1997. From 1997 to 2000, he was at the Harvard Law School, where he was the Jack N. and Lillian R. Berkman Professor for Entrepreneurial Legal Studies. His “Law of Cyberspace” classes taught while he was a visiting professor at Yale in 1995, was one of the first of its kind offered at a law school. Prof. Lessig teaches and writes in the areas of constitutional law, contracts, comparative constitutional law, and cyberspace, with a particular emphasis on such fundamentals as the First Amendment and free speech, and copyright law. His published book, Code, and Other Laws of Cyberspace, is a thoughtful exploration of intellectual property rights, free speech, and privacy on the web. Of his well more than thirty articles, fifteen or so are in the field of Internet regulation, exploring the nexus of regulation and cyberspace. He has given dozens of lectures on the same topic. A regular columnist for the Industry Standard, he has also contributed essays to The Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and The Boston Globe. In 2001, Random House published his book, Open Code, Open Culture. Prof. Lessig has consulted extensively with policy makers about the regulation of cyberspace, testifying before Congress regarding “Anti-paparazzi” legislation and the Child Online Protection Act. He has also been active in a number of high-profile Internet-related lawsuits, including Napster, the Microsoft antitrust case, and the merger of AT&T and MediaOne. At the time he served as Special Master to Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson in the Microsoft anti-trust case, Time magazine called Prof. Lessig a “leading thinker on how to adapt ancient principles to the new digital age.” In 1999-2000, Prof. Lessig was a fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin.
Prof. Samuelson teaches courses on intellectual property, cyberlaw and information policy. She has written and spoken extensively about the challenges that new information technologies pose for traditional legal regimes, especially for intellectual property law. In June 1997, she was named a Fellow of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Prof. Samuelson is also a Fellow of the Association of Computing Machinery, a Public Policy Fellow, a member of the Board of Directors of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and a member of the American Law Institute. From 1990-2000, she was a Contributing Editor of the computing professionals’ journal, Communications of the ACM, for which she wrote a regular “Legally Speaking” column. In May 2000, she received a Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Hawaii Law School. Prof. Samuelson is currently serving on the National Research Council’s Study Committee on Intellectual Property Rights in the Knowledge-Based Economy and previously served on the Council’s Study Committee on Intellectual Property Rights and the National Information Infrastructure which produced a report entitled, “The Digital Dilemma: Intellectual Property Rights in an Information Age.” In June 2000, the National Law Journal named her as one of the hundred most influential lawyers in the US. A 1976 graduate of Yale Law School, she practised law as an associate with the New York law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher before turning to more academic pursuits. From 1981 through June 1996, she was a member of the faculty at the University of Pittsburgh Law School, from which she visited at Columbia, Cornell, and Emory Law Schools.