New Frontiers in Intellectual Property

University of Technology Sydney (UTS) Faculty of Law is delighted to invite you to an in person conference considering 'New Frontiers in Intellectual Property'. A series of panels will feature eminent international and Australian IP experts identifying diverse domestic and global frontiers for IP in 2025 and beyond. 30 years after the entry into force of the WTO Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, IP is truly a global concern with broad and diverse impacts across industry and society. Our panelists will consider new frontiers for trade marks; IP, health and a healthy environment; collective rights and digital landscapes.

In New Frontiers for Trade Marks, our global trade marks experts will provide insights about emerging issues for trade marks in the United States, Europe and Australia. Professor Lisa Ramsey will analyse recent US Supreme Court trade mark cases and their impact on freedom of expression. Professor David Tan will analyse the role of parody in infringement and dilution cases. Professor Michael Handler will identify current challenges posed by AI for registration in Australian trade mark law. Associate Professor Rob Batty will discuss the influence of the Treaty of Waitangi on trade mark law in New Zealand. Professor Martin Senftleben will consider the relationship between trade marks and sustainability.

In IP, Health and a Healthy Environment, Professor Aisling McMahon will share insights from the EU on her work investigating the bioethical implications of patents over technologies which relate to the human body and Professor Jane Nielsen will discuss ownership of genomic data and how IP is being claimed by genomics researchers. Professor McMahon led support for the TRIPS Waiver proposal during the Covid-19 pandemic and Dr Omowamiwa Kolawole will provide ongoing insights on challenges for access to medicine in Africa. Dr Genevieve Wilkinson will identify trends in the use of trade marks in e-cigarette marketing and the contribution of this to harmful health impacts. Dr Elena Izyumenko will share research on the emerging right to a healthy environment and the impact of this on IP protection in European courts.

In Digital Landscapes, Professor Peter Yu will share his latest research on digital divides and AI and Associate Professor Justin Jütte will identify recent challenges from a European perspective. Professor Kimberlee Weatherall will discuss Australian digital frontiers. Professor Kathy Bowrey will share the outcomes of her research on production, management and ownership of knowledge in the 21st century.

An important issue in the Australian IP landscape is the relationship between IP and the protection of collective rights for Indigenous peoples and Bibi Barba from Create NSW will give valuable insight into her personal experiences of this as an Indigenous artist and advocate. Professor J. Janewa Osei-Tutu, Professor Jessica Lai, Dr Jocelyn Bosse and Professor Natalie Stoianoff will then draw on research from across the globe that can inform Australian policy and international approaches to collective rights and intellectual property. The panel is particularly topical in light of efforts to develop standalone legislation to protect Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property in Australia and the recent WIPO Treaty on Intellectual Property, Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge.

The event will precede the inaugural Jill McKeough lecture which will be delivered by Professor Leanne Wiseman and commence at 5.30pm. Please register separately for that event here.

Program Overview (please see speaker biographies below)

New Frontiers for Trade Marks (Session One, 9am)

IP, Health and a Healthy Environment (Session 2, 11.30am)

Digital Landscapes: New Frontiers in Copyright and Beyond (Session 3, 2.00pm)

Engaging with Collective Rights in IP (Session 4, 3.45pm)

New Frontiers for Trade Marks (Session One, 9am)

Lisa Ramsey is a Professor of Law at the University of San Diego School of Law, where she teaches and writes in the intellectual property law area. She is an expert on trademark law and has given presentations on this topic to attorneys, professors, and students throughout the United States and around the world. Professor Ramsey’s scholarship focuses on potential conflicts between trademark laws and free speech rights, and explains how trademark protection of certain inherently valuable words, symbols, and product features can harm fair competition and freedom of expression. She is currently working on a book about this topic which will be published by Cambridge University Press. In 2024, she testified at a hearing held by the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee's Intellectual Property Subcommittee about the First Amendment implications of a proposed anti-impersonation law targeted at unauthorized digital replicas called the No FAKES Act. She also talked about free speech limits on trademark rights on panels at San Diego Comic-Con in 2023 and 2024. Professor Ramsey is an active member of the American Intellectual Property Law Association and worked on the subcommittee that updated the International Trademark Association’s Model Trademark Law Guidelines in 2019. Before joining the USD law faculty in 2004, she was an intellectual property litigator at Gray Cary Ware & Freidenrich and a judicial law clerk for the Honorable Rebecca Beach Smith in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Information about her publications is available on her website at www.lisapramsey.com.

Professor David Tan is presently Co-Director of the Centre for Technology, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence & the Law and Head (Intellectual Property) of the EW Barker Centre for Law & Business at NUS Law. He served as Vice Dean (Academic Affairs) at NUS Law from January 2015 to June 2021 where he had oversight of the undergraduate and postgraduate coursework curriculum. David holds PhD, LLB (First Class Honours) and Bachelor of Commerce degrees from the University of Melbourne and an LLM from Harvard. He was also appointed a Professorial Fellow of the Attorney General’s Chambers-Legal Service Academy in 2024. David is presently on the advisory board of the National Museum of Singapore, and the Vice President (Business Development & Communications) of the Singapore Badminton Association. At NUS Law, David pioneered courses in Entertainment Law, Fashion Law, Freedom of Speech and Privacy & Data Protection Law; he has also taught as a visitor at Melbourne Law School, Tsinghua, Tokyo (Todai) and University of Hong Kong. His areas of research cover personality rights, copyright, trademarks, freedom of expression and tort law. He has published over 100 articles, comments, and book chapters since joining NUS Law in 2008. His publications have appeared in a wide range of journals that include Yale Journal of International Law, Harvard Journal of Sports & Entertainment Law, Law Quarterly Review, Australian Intellectual Property Journal, Media & Arts Law Review and Singapore Journal of Legal Studies.

Michael Handler is a Professor in the Faculty of Law & Justice and the former Head of the School of Private and Commercial Law (2021-24). He researches in the field of intellectual property law, focusing in particular on national and international trade mark law and the international regulation of geographical indications of origin. Michael is the co-author, with Professor Robert Burrell, of Australian Trade Mark Law (LexisNexis, 3rd ed, 2024). He has written numerous peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters on various aspects of local and international intellectual property law, in publications including the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Modern Law Review, Melbourne University Law Review, Federal Law Review, UNSW Law Journal, and the Trademark Reporter. Michael is the current chair of the Trade Marks Subcommittee of the Law Council of Australia’s Intellectual Property Committee, and a member of IP Australia’s Trade Marks and Designs Consultation Group.

Rob Batty is an Associate Professor at the University of Auckland and a Co-Director of the New Zealand Centre of Intellectual Property. His research interests include trade mark law and copyright and design law. Rob has written numerous articles on trade mark law, which have been published in international and New Zealand journals. His published articles have been cited in leading texts on trade mark law in New Zealand and Australia, by the New Zealand Supreme Court, the Singapore High Court and Court of Appeal, the New Zealand High Court and the New Zealand Intellectual Property Office.

Martin Senftleben is Professor of Intellectual Property Law and Director of the Institute for Information Law (IViR) at the Amsterdam Law School. His activities focus on the reconciliation of private intellectual property rights with competing public interests of a social, cultural or economic nature. Current research topics include institutionalized algorithmic copyright enforcement in the EU, the interplay between robot creativity and human literary and artistic productions, the preservation of the public domain of cultural expressions, and the impact of targeted advertising on supply and demand in market economies.

IP, Health and a Healthy Environment (Session 2, 11.30am)
Aisling McMahon is a Professor of Law at the School of Law and Criminology, Maynooth University. She previously held academic positions in Newcastle University and Durham University. Aisling’s research focuses on health law, and patent law, with a particular focus on the regulation of and access to emerging health-technologies and role of patents in such contexts. She currently leads the European Research Council Starting Grant funded 'PatentsInHumans' project. This large 5-year interdisciplinary project examines the role of bioethics in the grant and licensing of patents over technologies related to the human body in Europe, and avenues to engage with bioethical issues arising both within and outside patent law.

Jane Nielsen is a Professor at the Law School, University of Tasmania. Jane’s research broadly focuses on the regulation of innovative health technologies, including intellectual property (particularly patent law) issues and genomic data sharing.

Dr Omowamiwa Kolawole or Wami as he is fondly called by colleagues is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, at the University of Toronto, under the prestigious Public Health Black Postdoctoral Fellowship Program, as well as a being an Open-Air research fellow, affiliated with the University of Cape Town and the University of Ottawa. He is called to the Nigerian Bar, where he has practiced Law over the years. He obtained his Bachelor of Laws at the University of Lagos, Nigeria. He also holds a master’s in law, a PhD in Public Law as well as a master’s in public health from the University of Cape Town, South Africa. He is an interdisciplinary scholar and advocate, interested in questions at the intersection of human rights law, public health, global health governance and Intellectual Property.

Dr Genevieve Wilkinson is a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Law, University of Technology Sydney with expertise in the social justice implications of technology and and a barrister with expertise in intellectual property. She teaches and researches in the areas of intellectual property law, human rights, technology law and international law. Her research considers the human rights of children in relation to intellectual property and technology, focusing on the right to health and harmful advertising. Her 2023 book Founding a Global Human Rights Culture for Trade Marks was shortlisted for the Australian Legal Research Awards Book of the Year. Genevieve is currently researching the legal and policy implications of e-cigarette regulation and the relationship between intellectual property and children’s human rights.

Dr. Elena Izyumenko is an Assistant Professor of Intellectual Property (IP) Law at the University of Amsterdam’s Institute for Information Law (IViR), specializing in EU copyright and trademark laws, online IP enforcement, creators’ remuneration, sustainability, digital rights, and the impact of IP laws on human and fundamental rights. Elena is a former case-processing lawyer at the European Court of Human Rights (Council of Europe) and she has also previously worked as a legal researcher at the Centre for International Intellectual Property Studies (CEIPI) of the University of Strasbourg in France. She lectures internationally and publishes extensively in leading IP and broader law journals, with her research having been cited, among others, by Advocates General of the Court of Justice of the European Union. Additionally, Elena is a Certified Tutor for the Council of Europe Programme for Human Rights Education for Legal Professionals and a Senior Member of the Netherlands Network for Human Rights Research.

Challenges in the Digital Landscape (Session 3, 2.00pm)
Peter K. Yu (http://www.peteryu.com/bio.htm) is University Distinguished Professor, Regents Professor of Law and Communication and Director of the Center for Law and Intellectual Property at Texas A&M University. He is Vice-President of the American Branch of the International Law Association and has served as the general editor of The WIPO Journal published by the World Intellectual Property Organization.

Bernd Justin Jütte is Associate Professor in Intellectual Property at University College Dublin’ Sutherland School of Law. He obtained his PhD form the University of Luxmebourg and taught at the University of Nottingham from 2016-2020. In his research, Justin focuses on the intersection of copyright and new technologies, in particular through the lens of the European and international fundamental and human rights system.

Kathy Bowrey is a Professor in the Faculty of Law & Justice, UNSW. She began working in copyright in the 1980s as an interdisciplinary historian looking at how private rights emerged over culture and technology. She has two recent monographs that both study how corporations organised across the 20th c to use law to facilitate cultural control and to squeeze out other agendas. She also has some recent articles looking at why famous Australian inventors failed to profit from their patents. Today she is going to talk about a recent ARC project conducted with Tom Cochrane, Marie Hadley, Jill McKeough, Kylie Pappalardo, Irene Watson and Jill McKeough, Producing, managing and owning knowledge in the 21st century university.

Kimberlee Weatherall is a Professor at the University of Sydney Law School, a Chief Investigator with the ARC Centre of Excellence on Automated Decision-Making and Society, and Co-Director of the University of Sydney’s new Centre for AI, Trust and Governance. Kim spent between 15 and 20 years teaching and researching a range of IP issues although her research today investigates the impacts of, and governance of automation and artificial intelligence; at ADM+S she co-leads a project on AI regulation and co-leads a project on LLM-based agents for policy development. She has a ‘one foot in, one foot out’ view of how IP (and copyright in particular) intersects with global systems of knowledge and content generation

Engaging with Collective Rights in IP (Session 4, 3.45pm)
Bibi Barba

Bibi Barba is a proud Aboriginal saltwater woman and recognized cultural leader, belonging to the Darumbal Old, Darkinjung, Cammerygal, Gadigal, and Yuin NSW tribal clans. With a rich artistic career spanning over 35 years, her artwork has garnered international acclaim. Beyond her artistic achievements, Bibi is a leading international expert in Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property (ICIP), empowering and educating Aboriginal artists on their rights within the contemporary art field. Notably, she was an Australian delegate at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva on May 28, 2024, where she contributed to the historic treaty aimed at preventing the misappropriation of traditional knowledge, including "biopiracy."

Jocelyn Bosse

Dr Jocelyn Bosse joins us from Queen’s University Belfast. Jocelyn’s research examines the relationships between intellectual property rights and food, biodiversity, Indigenous rights, and the circulation of plants and knowledge.  Her current work explores the history and politics of plant variety rights and the naming of plant varieties. Her PhD focused on the access and benefit sharing (ABS) framework that emerged out of the Convention on Biological Diversity 1992 as a mechanism to prevent the misappropriation of biodiversity and Indigenous knowledge, and its failures to address problems within the patent and trade mark systems.

Natalie Stoianoff

Professor Natalie Stoianoff is Director of the Intellectual Property Program at the Faculty of Law University of Technology Sydney. She is also the Chair of the Indigenous Knowledge Forum and is currently co-convenor of the Technology and Intellectual Property Research Cluster in UTS Law. Natalie’s interdisciplinary research explores the protection of Indigenous knowledges including governance frameworks for access and benefit sharing regimes. Natalie’s research also encompasses the regulation of new technologies and the field of environmental taxation.

Jessica Lai

Professor Jessica Lai from Victoria University Wellington specialises in patent law, the relationship between IP and Mātauranga Māori, and patents and gender. Jessica is the author of Indigenous Cultural Heritage and Intellectual Property Rights (Springer, 2014) and Patent Law and Women (Routledge, 2022). Jessica is a New Zealand Royal Society Te Apārangi Rutherford Discovery Fellow. Her recent work has resulted in the publications 'Patents, Gendered Bodies and Innovation: A Case Study on Contraceptives'; ‘A Feminist Perspective on Food-Related Patents: On Messiness, Nature and the Social’.

Jan Osei-Tutu 

Professor Jan Osei-Tutu joins us from the University of Miami School of Law. Her research focuses on the societal impacts of intellectual property with a particular focus on the effects for developing countries. She is an expert in intellectual property, human development, human rights and traditional knowledge. Professor Osei-Tutu’s recent work has looked at Intellectual Property, Social Justice and Human Development: Empowering Female Entrepreneurs through trade mark law, and intellectual property’s role in eliminating poverty under the Sustainable Development Goals.