Matthew Rimmer's Blog, page 3
May 5, 2021
Law expert says historic trade waiver for COVID-19 crisis can save lives
QUT Media
6th May 2021
QUT leading law expert Professor Matthew Rimmer says today’s announcement by the US to waive intellectual property protections for Covid-19 vaccines is an “an important corrective to vaccine nationalism and corporate profiteering”.
Professor Rimmer, who has two decades’ experience on the legalities of intellectual property and access to essential medicines, said the US decision should help break a deadlock in the World Trade Organisation and put pressure on Australia to reconsider its position.
The United States Trade Representative Ambassador Katherine Tai announced this morning the Biden-Harris Administration supported waiving intellectual property protection in respect of COVID-19 vaccines.
“This is a global health crisis, and the extraordinary circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic call for extraordinary measures,” she said in a statement via Twitter.
The Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) move is expected to boost global supply and access to life-saving vaccinations, particularly in poorer countries.
South Africa and India initially put forward a proposal in the World Trade Organisation for a TRIPS Waiver to temporarily suspend intellectual property norms during the COVID-19 crisis.
Professor Rimmer said today’s decision by the US to support the TRIPS Waiver represented a historic, landmark achievement.
“After a period of isolationism under the Trump Administration, the Biden-Harris Administration is showing real leadership, co-operation, and solidarity in respect of global public health,” he said.
“While he has a long history of supporting strong intellectual property, President Joe Biden has been keenly sensitive to the public health tragedy of COVID-19 and his ambassador Katharine Tai has emphasized the administration’s aim is to get as many safe and effective vaccines to as many people as fast as possible.”
Professor Rimmer said it would be interesting to see the scope, form, and duration of the final text of the TRIPS Waiver.
“The TRIPS Waiver will help boost vaccine manufacturing and distribution and will help save lives around the world,” he said.
“In some ways, it echoes the Doha Declaration 2001 and the WTO General Council Decision 2003 — which were issued in response to the HIV/AIDS crisis.”
Professor Rimmer said it was timely for the Morrison Government to reconsider its stance on the TRIPS Waiver, given the shift in position of the United States.
“Prime Minister Scott Morrison has previously discussed the importance of the global sharing of vaccines. A number of Australian Nobel Laureates, including Brian Schmidt, Elizabeth Blackburn, and Peter Doherty, have supported the proposal for a People’s Vaccine under a TRIPS Waiver.”
Professor Rimmer also said there would also be increasing pressure upon the European Union to honour its previous statements that vaccines should be treated as a global public good.
Media contacts:
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February 12, 2021
International Makerspaces
Remaking the Maker Movement
QUT Faculty of Business and Law
Wednesday, 3 February 2021
10:00 am to 5:00 pm
Z1064, Gibson Room, Level 10, Z Block
QUT Gardens Point Campus
Session 5 — International Makerspaces (4:00 pm — 5:00 pm)
4:00 pm — 4:20 pm
Institutionalisation and Informal Innovation in South African Maker Communities
Dr Chris Armstrong, University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), Johannesburg; University of Ottawa; and Open African Innovation Research (Open AIR) network
https://medium.com/media/f7fda6f1e083c762f35b547a404a2947/hrefAbstract
This presentation explores the current modalities at play in respect of institutionalisation and informal innovation in maker communities in South Africa. Research in 2016–18 generated data on more than 30 maker communities across South Africa. The data provide insights into a number of management, spatial and activity variables present in the practices of the maker communities and their members. This paper focuses on two of the dimensions found to be present when looking across the management, spatial and activity variables: institutionalisation and informal innovation. Institutionalisation is conceptualised as resulting in, and from: (1) formalisation of maker communities’ practices; (2) partnerships between maker communities and formal organisations; and (3) embedding of maker communities in formal organisations. Informal innovation is conceptualised as manifesting in: (1) constraint-based innovation; (2) incremental innovation; (3) collaborative innovation; (4) informal approaches to knowledge appropriation; and (5) innovation in informal networks/communities in informal settings. The data show that since the emergence of the maker movement in South Africa in roughly 2011, there has been an increase in institutionalisation of, and within, maker communities. At the same time, the data show that there continues to be a strong spirit of informality in the communities, with most of the communities, including the relatively more-institutionalised ones, actively seeking to preserve emphasis on informal-innovation modalities. A core conclusion is that, in the present stage of evolution of the South African maker movement, elements of institutionalisation appear to be largely offering synergies, rather than tensions, with the ethos of informal innovation. Such synergies are allowing South African maker communities to play intermediary, semi-formal roles, as mediating entities between formal and informal elements of the country’s innovation ecosystem.
Biography
Dr. Chris Armstrong is Research Associate, LINK Centre, University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), Johannesburg, South Africa; Senior Research Associate, Centre for Law, Technology and Society, University of Ottawa; and Researcher, Open African Innovation Research (Open AIR) network. Email: chris.armstrong@wits.ac.za, c.g.armstrong@uottawa.ca
4:20 pm — 4:40 pm
3D Printing and Intellectual Property
Professor Lucas Osborn, Campbell University Norman A. Wiggins School of Law
https://medium.com/media/a68151518df7db3f5d834364af5fffd8/hrefAbstract
Intellectual property (IP) laws were drafted for tangible objects, but 3D printing technology, which digitizes objects and offers manufacturing capacity to anyone, is disrupting these laws and their underlying policies. In his timely new book, Lucas S. Osborn focuses on the novel issues raised for IP law by 3D printing for the major IP systems around the world. He specifically addresses how patent and design law must wrestle with protecting digital versions of inventions and policing individualized manufacturing, how trademark law must confront the dissociation of design from manufacturing, and how patent and copyright law must be reconciled when digital versions of primarily utilitarian objects are concerned. With an even hand and keen insight, Osborn offers an innovation-centered analysis of and balanced response to the disruption caused by 3D printing that should be read by nonexperts and experts alike.
Biography
Lucas Osborn is an expert in the area of Intellectual Property Law, with a focus on Patent Law. He has authored over a dozen articles on intellectual property law, presented his research on three continents, and been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg News and local publications. His scholarship is highly cited and appears in law reviews such as Notre Dame Law Review, U.C. Davis Law Review, Cardozo Law Review, San Diego Law Review, and Stanford Technology Law Review.
Professor Osborn serves as the founder and director of Campbell Law School’s Intellectual Property Law Program. Before coming to Campbell Law, he clerked for the Honorable Kenneth M. Hoyt on the United States District Court for the Southern district of Texas and served as an attorney at a major international law firm where his practice focused on patent litigation, patent prosecution and intellectual property licensing. He is licensed to practice in front of the U.S. Patent and Trademark office and holds an of-counsel position at Michael Best & Friedrich.
His most recent works explore three-dimensional printing (3D printing) and other digital technology affects the law, particularly intellectual property law. He has published a book on the topic with Cambridge University Press titled 3D Printing and Intellectual Property. Professor Osborn also served for four years on the Confidentiality Commission within the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
4:40 pm — 5:00 pm
International Perspectives on Disability Exceptions in Copyright Law and the Visual Arts: Feeling Art
Associate Professor Jani McCutcheon, The University of Western Australia
https://medium.com/media/46da58d1caf564502eff070b5f8c9d2d/hrefAbstract
Jani McCutcheon’s new book (co-edited with Ana Ramalho) provides an overview of disability exceptions to copyright infringement and the international and human rights legal framework for disability rights and exceptions. The focus is on those exceptions as they apply to visual art, while the book presents a comprehensive study of copyright’s disability exceptions per se and the international and human rights law framework in which they are situated.
3D printing now allows people with a visual impairment to experience 3D reproductions of paintings, drawings and photographs through touch. At the same time, the uncertain application of existing disability exceptions to these reproductions may generate concerns about legal risk, hampering sensory art projects and reducing inclusivity and equity in cultural engagement by people with a visual impairment. The work adopts an interdisciplinary approach, with contributions from diverse stakeholders, including persons with disabilities, cultural institutions and the 3D printing industry. The book sketches the scene relating to sensory art projects. Experts in intellectual property, human rights, disability and art law then critically analyse the current legal landscape relating to disability access to works of visual art at both international and regional levels, as well as across a broad representative sample of national jurisdictions, and identify where legal reform is required.
This comparative analysis of the laws aims to better inform stakeholders of the applicable legal landscape, the legal risks and opportunities associated with sensory art and the opportunities for reform and best practice guidelines, with the overarching goal of facilitating international harmonisation of the law and enhanced inclusivity.
Biography
Jani teaches and researches in the areas of intellectual property law and is the Law School’s Deputy Head of School, Teaching and Learning. Her research focuses on copyright and moral rights, particularly in the context of literature and visual art. Jani obtained her LLB and a BA (Hons) in English Literature from Monash University, and a LLM by research from UWA which focused on the potential registration of non-traditional trade marks. Before joining UWA in 1999, she worked as a solicitor for Freehill, Hollingdale and Page, and a Legal Research Officer for a Member of the WA Legislative Assembly. Since joining UWA, Jani has from time to time worked part-time as a solicitor and as a consultant to specialist intellectual property law firms. She has published internationally in numerous peer-reviewed journals and edited collections and presented her work at conferences and workshops in many countries, a number of which she has convened or co-convened. She has been a visiting scholar at Berkeley Law school.
Session 5 — International Makerspaces (4:00 pm — 5:00 pm)
Dr Chris Armstrong, ‘Institutionalisation and Informal Innovation in South African Maker Communities’, Remaking the Maker Movement, QUT Faculty of Business and Law, 3 February 2021, https://youtu.be/7ERu7jupJFE
Professor Lucas Osborn, ‘3D Printing and Intellectual Property’, Remaking the Maker Movement, QUT Faculty of Business and Law, 3 February 2021, https://youtu.be/gqshqgDUR8Q
Associate Professor Jani McCutcheon, ‘International Perspectives on Disability Exceptions in Copyright Law and the Visual Arts: Feeling Art’, Remaking the Maker Movement, QUT Faculty of Business and Law, 3 February 2021, https://youtu.be/Zl_c-tzMX24
Makerspaces and the Law
Remaking the Maker Movement
QUT Faculty of Business and Law
Wednesday, 3 February 2021
10:00 am to 5:00 pm
Z1064, Gibson Room, Level 10, Z Block
QUT Gardens Point Campus
Session 4 — Makerspaces and the Law (3:00 pm — 4:00 pm)
3:00–3:20 pm
The Role and Patent Infringement Liability of Fab Labs and Community Makerspaces in COVID-19 Response
Dr Muhammad Zaheer Abbas, QUT
https://medium.com/media/ee7070f373a38f6bd19ae0282d910940/hrefAbstract
The rapid spread of COVID-19 created an unprecedented demand for critical medical equipment. 3D printing is uniquely well-positioned to support the shortage of critical medical devices in a health emergency by enabling customization and printing of devices in a timely and cost-effective manner. Makerspaces for 3D printing play a key role in community-driven distributed manufacturing by providing enabling ecosystem for active engagement of the informal Maker community. Makerspaces, also called hacker spaces or Maker labs, are places that are equipped with tools, materials, and software that allow users or members to make and innovate things alongside each other by learning and sharing their projects. A Fab Lab is a kind of Makerspace that follows a charter and is governed by a foundation. Makerspaces enjoy the flexibility to rethink and reshape their services and resources in the light of changing societal needs in a health emergency. This study identifies and documents the invaluable contributions of Makerspaces for 3D printing as enablers of both localized supply-chains and problem-solving innovation in response to COVID-19. In community Makerspaces, users can potentially infringe on other’s patent rights by using the enabling ecosystem for 3D printing. This study provides a perspective of the contributory patent infringement liability challenges faced by community Makerspaces. This study is important because the sustainability of the Maker response during this and future pandemics relies heavily on smoothly functioning community Makerspaces.
Biography
Dr. Muhammad Zaheer Abbas is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Faculty of Business and Law, Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Brisbane, Australia. In this role, he is working with Professor Matthew Rimmer on his Australian Research Council Discovery Project ‘Inventing the Future: Intellectual Property and 3D Printing’. He recently completed PhD in Law at QUT as a recipient of QUT Postgraduate Research Award. He studied Law at International Islamic University (IIU), Islamabad, Pakistan, and obtained LLB (Hons) with distinction in 2010. He also obtained LLM in International Law, with distinction, from the same university in 2012. He served as a Lecturer in Law at Faculty of Law, IIU, and has nearly 10 years of teaching and/ or research experience. He also served as Associate Editor of ‘Islamabad Law Review’, a peer reviewed open access research journal of IIU. He has published 18 peer-reviewed research papers, mostly related to intellectual property protection and the public interest. His notable research publications include:
‘Strategic Use of Patent Opposition Safeguard to Improve Access to Innovative Health Technologies: A Case Study of CAR T-Cell Therapy Kymriah’ (2020) Global Public Health‘COVID-19 and the Global Public Health: Tiered Pricing of Pharmaceutical Drugs as a Price-Reducing Policy Tool’ (2020) Journal of Generic Medicines‘Conflicting Interests, Competing Perspectives and Policy Incoherence: COVID-19 Highlights the Significance of the UN High-Level Panel Report on Access to Medicines’ (2020) 31 Australian Intellectual Property Journal 24–42‘Treatment of the Novel COVID-19: Why Costa Rica’s Proposal for the Creation of a Global Pooling Mechanism Deserves Serious Consideration?’ (2020) 7(1) Journal of Law and the Biosciences 1–10‘WTO Paragraph 6 System for Affordable Access to Medicines: Relief or Regulatory Ritualism’ (2018) 21(1–2) Journal of World Intellectual Property 32–51In 2014, Dr. Abbas got an opportunity to attend the “Winter Institute” held at the College of William & Mary, Virginia, and Georgetown University, Washington D.C. In 2018, he attended the ‘15th WTO-WIPO Colloquium for Teachers of Intellectual Property’ held at Geneva, Switzerland. In the same year, he attended the ‘Fifth Global Congress on IP and the Public Interest’ held at American University Washington College of Law, Washington D.C. In 2020, he presented his research findings at the virtual ‘Intellectual Property Scholars Conference’ organized by Stanford University, California, USA.
3:20pm-3:40 pm
Homo Deus: The Promise of Legal Imagination for New Technologies in Innovative Industries
Dr Anne Matthew, QUT
https://medium.com/media/7a70d2cd010ca3d0b8a27ae2d24b76ef/hrefAbstract
Harari has argued that the most ingenious human invention was the greatest figment of legal imagination: the company. As we know, the company is simply a device — an artificial legal person whose easy creation was made possible by legislators the better part of 200 years ago. Since then, Harari argues, legal imagination has stalled; scientific imagination has not. This presentation takes up this gauntlet thrown down by Harari. Thinking differently and creatively may be a necessity if humanity is to stand a chance to keep a step ahead of the legal policy problems arising amidst the rapid technological advancements in robotics and artificial intelligence, the creative use of algorithms and the rich and expansive datasets that serve as platforms for their training and behaviour. This presentation outlines the earliest stages of a collaborative research project (Guihot, Rimmer, Matthew, Arnold, Dootson) exploring the innovation law and policy challenges arising with robotics in innovative industries. This presentation will canvas the possibilities that may be afforded by the creation of a new legal fiction to better cope with the technological reality in which we find ourselves.
Biography
Dr Anne Matthew is a Senior Lecturer at QUT Law School, a Consultant at Corrs Chambers Westgarth, Lawyers, and Chair of the Expert Advisory Group on Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) National Coordination Committee, Australia.
Anne studies how regulation can create an enabling environment for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, including particularly their access to finance. Anne’s research focuses on companies, particularly those engaged in innovation and entrepreneurship, including in particular start-ups in innovative industries. Anne also uses corporate law and innovation economics as a lens to develop solutions for policy problems arising with innovative industries. Innovation, entrepreneurship, and risk-taking play a pivotal role in economic growth and should be encouraged in a modern economy. Anne’s PhD thesis considered how to best position the legal environment created by corporate law to encourage these phenomena, particularly among start-up ventures. Her thesis explored this question by examining select elements of Australian corporate law through the lens of innovation economics, and broke new ground in doing so. Anne’s thesis was recently awarded QUT’s Outstanding Thesis Award. Anne’s forthcoming publications include a monograph, Risk, Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Corporate Law (Routledge, 2021).
Anne teaches postgraduate and undergraduate programs in international commercial arbitration, international commercial law and finance, innovation law, corporate law and the mitigation of risks arising with emerging technologies including artificial intelligence and robots.
3:40 pm — 4:00 pm
Automating Cities: Welcome to the Machine Metropolis
Brydon Timothy Wang, QUT
https://medium.com/media/6cf8d3439cfd155897d4f6fa2fac496c/hrefAbstract
From 3D-printed houses, the integration of industrial robots in on-site construction processes, to the large-scale assemblages of floating platforms to create hybrid floating cities, and FAB Labs, we are witnessing the phenomenal impact that automation processes have in mechanising and digitising our way of life and the design, construction and operation of our cities. How will our governance frameworks and the law respond to these automation processes — both in the mechanisation and digitising of cities — is a question that is explored in the newly published edited collection, Automating Cities: Design, Construction, Operation and Future Impact (Springer). This seminar presentation by the lead editor summarises the learnings presented in the book — both the cutting edge technologies and their impact on society.
Biography
Brydon is a Lecturer with the QUT School of Law and is a technology and construction lawyer passionate about smart city technology, infrastructure delivery and new ways people can come together to live, work and play. He has a previous career in architecture and was recently lead editor on the recently published book Automating Cities (Springer). Prior to coming to the law, Brydon was a Project Manager with the Public Transport Authority (WA) and worked as a Contracts Administrator in a number of leading commercial construction firms. Brydon has also taught at the Master of Architecture and Master of Data Science programmes at the University of Queensland. He is currently researching the legal implications of trustworthy automated decision-making systems, particularly machine superintendence in construction contracts.
Session 4 — Makerspaces and the Law (3:00 pm — 4:00 pm)
Dr Muhammed Zaheer Abbas, ‘The Role and Patent Infringement Liability of Fab Labs and Community Makerspaces in COVID-19 Response’, Remaking the Maker Movement, QUT Faculty of Business and Law, 3 February 2021, https://youtu.be/n7es6c0tN1w
Dr Anne Matthew, ‘Homo Deus: The Promise of Legal Imagination for New Technologies in Innovative Industries’, Remaking the Maker Movement, QUT Faculty of Business and Law, 3 February 2021, https://youtu.be/uasvOgD4QU4
Brydon Timothy Wang, ‘Automating Cities: Welcome to the Machine Metropolis’, Remaking the Maker Movement, QUT Faculty of Business and Law, 3 February 2021, https://youtu.be/wJCMEkyeY7Q
Community Makerspaces
QUT Faculty of Business and Law
Wednesday, 3 February 2021
10:00 am to 5:00 pm
Z1064, Gibson Room, Level 10, Z Block
QUT Gardens Point Campus
Session 3 — Community Makerspaces (1:30 pm — 2:30 pm)
1:30 pm — 1:50 pm
Tool Libraries: Innovation Hubs for Economic Degrowth
Sabrina Chakori, Brisbane Tool Library Inc.
https://medium.com/media/2b76f49c670a6967fa4e1531f034ccb7/hrefAbstract
Founded in 2017 by Sabrina Chakori, the Brisbane Tool Library enables people to borrow tools, camping and sports gear, party appliances and other equipment saved from landfill. The Brisbane Tool Library work aims to build a degrowth (postgrowth) economy, by creating sustainable communities through sharing resources and skills. The Brisbane Tool Library is the first tool library, or “library of things”, in Queensland, and the first and only one in Australia to be located within a public library, in the State Library of Queensland.
In this seminar presentation, Sabrina Chakori will introduce economic degrowth principles and community-driven circular economy models. Tool libraries are innovation hubs that could profoundly transform the economy. Tool libraries help to reduce the ecological footprint of its members, while saving them money and space. Moreover, by implementing structured sharing systems, these hubs contribute to a re-localisation of the economy and a reduction of inequalities in urban areas. Tool libraries offer an alternative to the current productivist and consumerist growth-driven system. By recreating the commons, society can achieve a more socially just and ecologically sustainable society.
Biography
Sabrina holds a BSc. in Biology (University of Geneva — Switzerland), a MSc. in Environmental Economics (The University of Queensland) and she is currently finishing a PhD research that explores food packaging reduction in food systems within a degrowth economy. Her study is an interdisciplinary research between the School of Agriculture — Food Science and the School of Business of the University of Queensland. Sabrina is a passionate systems modeller (systems thinking, system dynamics, network analysis). She believes that systems methods are crucial to understand and tackle current socio-economic wicked problems.
Sabrina is convinced that to solve the interlinked social and ecological crisis we need to change the roots of our economy, shifting away from the growth-driven system. To translate into practice her knowledge and vision, in 2017, she founded the Brisbane Tool Library, a social enterprise that based on a circular economy aims to reduce household consumption.
Sabrina worked in different countries, including Kenya, Mexico, Ecuador, Australia and across Europe. For more than a decade, she has been advocating for a more environmentally sustainable society, leading numerous collaborations, including an initiative with Queensland’s Environment Minister to introduce the law banning single-use plastic bags.
Founder, researcher, keynote speaker, and most of all activist, Sabrina is fully invested in creating systemic change that would build a more socially just and ecologically sustainable economy.
1:50 pm-2:10 pm
DIY and Making in Low Socioeconomic Communities
Dr Dhaval Vyas, The University of Queensland
https://medium.com/media/c1fb3c70720c14508367bab070a9b74d/hrefAbstract
Based on three years of ethnographic work in a variety of makerspaces around Queensland, I am going to discuss four values associated with DIY and making in low socioeconomic communities. These are 1) Making to improve living; 2) Making as carework; 3) Meta-making and 4) Making as therapy. These values add to the ongoing discourse of DIY and emphasize the importance of Makerspaces for local communities.
Biography
Dr Dhaval Vyas is an ARC DECRA fellow and Senior Lecturer at the University of Queensland. He works in the area of Human-Centered Computing. His research focuses on designing IT tools to support marginalised communities in Australia. Dhaval has a PhD in Human-Computer Interaction from University of Twente, the Netherlands and Masters in Computer Science from Lancaster University, UK.
2:10 pm — 2:30 pm
Open Prosthetics: Intellectual Property, 3D Printing, Medical Innovation, and Disability Rights
Professor Matthew Rimmer, QUT
https://medium.com/media/bde14d60e9b9adbc1ffa9fdc02445453/hrefAbstract
This paper considers the role of open innovation makerspaces in the development of prosthetics. In terms of its methodology, this project has relied upon qualitative interviews with key figures in the maker community, as well as field visits to makerspaces. This paper in particular been informed by interviews with open source 3D printing practitioners in the European Union, seeking to address public health, access to medicines and research tools, and disability rights. Part 1 of this paper focuses upon MSF relying upon 3D printing in a refugee camp in Jordan to provide prosthetics for those from the region with disability needs. Part 2 examines a medical 3D printing project run Thomas Maal and Lars Brouwers at Radboud University in Nijmegen in both the Netherlands and Sierra Leone. Part 3 explores the Careables project in Belgium. It focuses upon legal considerations in respect of privacy and data protection; intellectual property; product liability; and medical regulation. The conclusion considers the wider scope for open licensing in respect of 3D printing in the fields of prosthetics and medicine. It also makes recommendations for the expansion of disability rights in respect of intellectual property law.
Biography
Dr Matthew Rimmer is a Professor in Intellectual Property and Innovation Law at the Faculty of Business and Law, at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT). He has published widely on copyright law and information technology, patent law and biotechnology, access to medicines, plain packaging of tobacco products, intellectual property and climate change, Indigenous Intellectual Property, and intellectual property and trade. He is undertaking research on intellectual property and 3D printing; the regulation of robotics and artificial intelligence; and intellectual property and public health (particularly looking at the coronavirus COVID-19). His work is archived at QUT ePrints, SSRN Abstracts, Bepress Selected Works, and Open Science Framework.
Rimmer is currently working as a Chief Investigator on an ARC Discovery Project on ‘Inventing The Future: Intellectual Property and 3D Printing’ (2017–2020). This project aims to provide guidance for industry and policy-makers about intellectual property, three-dimensional (3D) printing, and innovation policy. It will consider the evolution of 3D printing, and examine its implications for the creative industries, branding and marketing, manufacturing and robotics, clean technologies, health-care and the digital economy. The project will examine how 3D printing disrupts copyright law, designs law, trade mark law, patent law and confidential information. The project expects to provide practical advice about intellectual property management and commercialisation, and boost Australia’s capacity in advanced manufacturing and materials science. Along with Dinusha Mendis and Mark Lemley, Rimmer is the editor of the collection, 3D Printing and Beyond: Intellectual Property and Regulation (Edward Elgar, 2019). He is also engaged in fieldwork on makerspaces, fab labs, tech shops, Maker Faires, and hackerspaces; and has been conducting interviews with members of the Maker Movement.
Session 3 — Community Makerspaces (1:30 pm — 2:30 pm)
Sabrina Chakori, ‘Tool Libraries: Innovation Hubs for Economic Degrowth’, Remaking the Maker Movement, QUT Faculty of Business and Law, 3 February 2021, https://youtu.be/hVM9GyG2_xQ
Dr Dhaval Vyas, ‘DIY and Making in Low Socioeconomic Communities’, Remaking the Maker Movement, QUT Faculty of Business and Law, 3 February 2021, https://youtu.be/mA_is0KDINY
Professor Matthew Rimmer, ‘Open Prosthetics: Intellectual Property, 3D Printing, Medical Innovation, and Disability Rights’, Remaking the Maker Movement, QUT Faculty of Business and Law, 3 February 2021, https://youtu.be/YlJBi3wWsDU
Scientific Makerspaces
QUT Faculty of Business and Law
Wednesday, 3 February 2021
10:00 am to 5:00 pm
Z1064, Gibson Room, Level 10, Z Block
QUT Gardens Point Campus
Session 2 — Scientific Makerspaces (11:30 am — 11:50 am)
11:30 am — 11:50 am
Soft Matter Materials Laboratory
Dr Sarah Walden, QUT
https://medium.com/media/4bd8e00b2c188c3f361401b60fc20a73/hrefAbstract
3D printing is a ubiquitous fabrication method in advanced manufacturing. Whilst many methods of 3D printing have been developed, light-based techniques are particularly attractive due to the spatio-temporal control and high precision in the delivered energy. In this talk I will highlight some of our research group’s work in developing novel light-based 3D printing resists designed for a myriad of different applications.
Biography
Sarah L. Walden received a B.Math/BAppSc(Phys) (Hons) from the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Brisbane, Australia, in 2012. She then went on to complete a PhD investigating the nonlinear optical properties of semiconductor nanoparticles in 2017. Her research interests are in the area of light-matter interactions and nonlinear optical properties of materials. She is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow between the Soft Matter Materials Laboratory at QUT and the Karsluhe Institute of Technology (KIT), investigating new materials for sub-diffraction resolution lithography.
11:50 am — 12:10 pm
Bioprinting, the Internet of Bodies, Intellectual Property, and Human Rights
Dr Bruce Baer Arnold, the University of Canberra
https://medium.com/media/da9026e7e12266eb8d71ed2501cfaf2c/hrefAbstract
The ‘right to health’ raises fundamental questions about intellectual property law rather than merely rationing of public/private health services to those most in need, most in pain or most able to pay for a spot at the front of the queue. This presentation explores making, IP and regulation by discussing bioprinting and the internet of bodies (IoB). Bioprinting (aka biofabrication) — a next generation technology — promises to revolutionise healthcare through the printing of skin, organs and bone using material cultured from a recipient. That blue sky contrasts with the emergence of conventional 3D printing for the internet of bodies, in other words one-off making by health service providers of medical devices that range from prosthetic limbs and joints through to smart implantable monitors, pumps and other tools as a subset of the inanimate internet of things. Literature about the IOB has centred on tracking and the human right to privacy. There has been less attention to patent, affordability and medical device regulation. The presentation introduces bioprinting and 3D printing aspects of the IoB, highlights patent challenges, and argues that the right to health offers a lens for resolving questions about access, device regulation and IP.
Biography
Dr Arnold teaches technology and intellectual property law at the University of Canberra. He has a particular interest in disruptive technologies such as robotics and 3D printing, alongside regulatory capture and human rights in high technology markets. Recent publication has considered law around cryonics and rights language around implants.
12:10 pm — 12:30 pm
Shane Rattenbury, The Productivity Commission, and The Right To Repair: Intellectual Property and Sustainable Development
Professor Matthew Rimmer, QUT
https://medium.com/media/df325ef1665a5c8f2ec3cade84f79ea4/hrefAbstract
This presentation considers the role of the maker movement in the debate over the right to repair in Australia against the background of a larger discussion of intellectual property and sustainable development. It examines the advocacy of ACT Attorney-General Shane Rattenbury on calling for the Productivity Commission to conduct a research investigation into the right to repair. This talk draws upon a 2020 interview with Shane Rattenbury — as well as fieldwork at Substation33, and engagement with civil society organisations. This paper considers the role of innovation spaces — such as repair cafes, fab labs, and makerspaces — in developing a culture of recycling and repair. It also considers the UNDRP’s establishment of a network of Accelerator Labs to accelerate the realization of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development goals. This presentation contends that Australia’s intellectual property laws are fragmented and fractured in the ways, in which they deal with the right to repair. It calls upon the Productivity Commission to push for law reform to enable a holistic approach to the right to repair under Australia’s intellectual property laws. This paper argues that there is a need to recognize a broad right to repair in Australia in order to enhance consumer rights, and competition policy. Moreover, as ACT Attorney-General Shane Rattenbury has argued, the recognition of a right to repair will also support a circular economy, sustainable development, and climate action in Australia.
Biography
Dr Matthew Rimmer is a Professor in Intellectual Property and Innovation Law at the Faculty of Business and Law, at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT). He has published widely on copyright law and information technology, patent law and biotechnology, access to medicines, plain packaging of tobacco products, intellectual property and climate change, Indigenous Intellectual Property, and intellectual property and trade. He is undertaking research on intellectual property and 3D printing; the regulation of robotics and artificial intelligence; and intellectual property and public health (particularly looking at the coronavirus COVID-19). His work is archived at QUT ePrints, SSRN Abstracts, Bepress Selected Works, and Open Science Framework.
Rimmer is currently working as a Chief Investigator on an ARC Discovery Project on ‘Inventing The Future: Intellectual Property and 3D Printing’ (2017–2020). This project aims to provide guidance for industry and policy-makers about intellectual property, three-dimensional (3D) printing, and innovation policy. It will consider the evolution of 3D printing, and examine its implications for the creative industries, branding and marketing, manufacturing and robotics, clean technologies, health-care and the digital economy. The project will examine how 3D printing disrupts copyright law, designs law, trade mark law, patent law and confidential information. The project expects to provide practical advice about intellectual property management and commercialisation, and boost Australia’s capacity in advanced manufacturing and materials science. Along with Dinusha Mendis and Mark Lemley, Rimmer is the editor of the collection, 3D Printing and Beyond: Intellectual Property and Regulation (Edward Elgar, 2019). He is also engaged in fieldwork on makerspaces, fab labs, tech shops, Maker Faires, and hackerspaces; and has been conducting interviews with members of the Maker Movement.
Session 2 — Scientific Makerspaces (11:30 am — 12:30 pm)
Dr Sarah Walden, ‘Soft Matter Materials Laboratory’, Remaking the Maker Movement, QUT Faculty of Business and Law, 3 February 2021, https://youtu.be/oRnDzTEMt-Y
Dr Bruce Baer Arnold, ‘Bioprinting, the Internet of Bodies, Intellectual Property, and Human Rights’, Remaking the Maker Movement, QUT Faculty of Business and Law, 3 February 2021, https://youtu.be/_J5HniiS04k
Professor Matthew Rimmer, ‘Shane Rattenbury, the Productivity Commission, and the Right to Repair: Intellectual Property and Sustainable Development’, Remaking the Maker Movement, QUT Faculty of Business and Law, 3 February 2021, https://youtu.be/DUGno_shkkA
University Makerspaces
Remaking the Maker Movement
QUT Faculty of Business and Law
Wednesday, 3 February 2021
10:00 am to 5:00 pm
Z1064, Gibson Room, Level 10, Z Block
QUT Gardens Point Campus
Session 1 — University Makerspaces (10:00 am — 11:00 am)
10:00 am — 10:20 am
Drivers for Entrepreneurship and Creativity at University
Professor Rowena Barrett, Executive Director, QUT Entrepreneurship
https://medium.com/media/2583237a404b1ac1a3e908e4a3162f47/hrefAbstract
In this presentation Rowena will outline the ways in which QUT invests in entrepreneurial action. She will explain what entrepreneurship is and how it amplifies discipline learning. Importantly she will highlight the role creativity and making plays in entrepreneurship and discuss some of the opportunities and challenges of increasing this activity across the university.
Biography
Professor Rowena Barrett is an expert in thinking innovatively and being entrepreneurial to get things done. She leads QUT Entrepreneurship, a whole-of-university initiative to provide and connect learning opportunities enabling all QUT students and staff to develop their entrepreneurship mindset, capability and competence.
Rowena is an experienced and authentic leader who brings integrity, purpose and commitment to engaging people across many domains inside and outside the university around entrepreneurship. She brings academic and practical understanding of motivations and drivers for entrepreneurship. She seeks to ensure QUT plays a key role in the wider entrepreneurial ecosystem and runs a range of events and learning programs to connect and engage with the community.
10:20 am — 10:40 am
Regional Academic Makerspaces
Stephanie Piper, University of Southern Queensland
https://medium.com/media/cbc23a42b1e4fa9894477c8e5d5e6193/hrefAbstract
The University of Southern Queensland Library Makerspace is a hub for students to work on hands-on projects. From 3D printing and 3D scanning to Arduino and electronics, students and staff from all disciplines can use the space for projects. Steph Piper will talk through the facilities, services and equipment in this space and local projects that have driven innovation and manufacturing capacity in regional Toowoomba. Hear about medical prototyping, PPE projects, and the vast potential of the next generation of digital fabrication equipment. Learn the importance of building self-sufficiency in regional and rural areas through library makerspaces.
Biography
Stephanie Piper is the Community Engagement Coordinator at USQ, looking after the library Makerspace. She is also co-founder of Elkei Education, introducing electronics skills and positive role models to young girls. With a background in biofabrication, Steph also teaches classes in 3D printing, Arduino and Hardware development. For more info, see www.piper3dp.com
10:40 am — 11:00 am
The Journey of Building a World-Class Educational Makerspace at The University of Queensland
Vince Kelly, The University of Queensland
https://medium.com/media/a6acf912bda43163d305f18fb01be28a/hrefAbstract
The presentation explores the journey of delivering the new ‘UQ Innovate’ educational makerspace at The University of Queensland (UQ). From identifying the facility requirements, through to execution of the project and running of the space, the elements of success and lessons from failures are discussed. Also discussed is the role a makerspace plays in the broader entrepreneurial and innovation (E&I) ecosystem.
Biography
Mr. Vince Kelly is the Innovation Group Manager, located within the Engineering Architecture & Information Technology Faculty of The University of Queensland (UQ). Having joined in 2017, Vince’s mission has been directed towards the building of a world class teaching, learning and research technical support capacity across the Faculty. With a professional interest in the field of Innovation, he is currently studying a Masters of Entrepreneurship & Innovation at UQ. Vince describes his current career focus as being in the ‘ideas business’.
His previous work history has primarily been manufacturing operations management roles within the industrial sector. After completing dual degrees in Engineering and Business at QUT in the early nineties, he commenced working within the automotive industry across multiple technical roles. Transitioning to the construction and building materials sector, Vince held various engineering and management roles within multinational companies such as Boral and James Hardie, as well as a number of other national and locally based industrial firms. An exponent of ‘Lean’ management principles, his professional focus was directed towards driving efficiency and continuous improvement initiatives.
11:00 am — 11:20 am
An Ecosystem Approach to Makerspace Sustainability within a Digital Innovation Precinct in Johannesburg, South Africa
Mia van Zyl, Tshimologong (TMG) Makerspace, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
https://medium.com/media/0dab74a2a20e7ee1e9e165ffd5598330/hrefAbstract
This presentation explains and highlights who we are as TMG Makerspace, a digital fabrication and prototyping co-working space located within Tshimologong Precinct, the digital innovation incubator of WITS University, Johannesburg, South Africa. The focus of the presentation is an ecosystem approach to crafting a sustainable future for our Makerspace together with partners, talent, industry and funders.
The following three points form the basis of our value system as the Tshimologong Makers Group (TMG):
- A shared culture of co-creation, collaboration and community building;
- Accessibility to the means and resources for innovation, and
- Generosity with knowledge and skills sharing.
As co-manager and fellow founding member of TMG Makerspace from 2018 onwards, Mia shares the journey of this predominantly Gauteng based community of digital and creative tech entrepreneurs, and how we have developed and formalised our talents, skills and Maker culture into a set of value offerings to serve its communities of influence. TMG serves its own members with enterprise development and tech development support; we serve the entrepreneurial community of Tshimologong Precinct with design, prototyping, and fabrication services; and we serve the Precinct itself with pre-incubation services for its talent pipeline, experiential learning and development programmes for corporate and academic partners, and the general public with commercial fabrication and consultation services.
TMG Makerspace is an active member of the South African Maker Collective, a semi-formalised network of Makerspaces, Maker communities, tinkerers and fabricators around the country.
Biography
M!a (Mia van Zyl) is a South African designer-maker based in Johannesburg, specialising in accessible innovation, creative facilitation and coordination. Mia is a co-founder and co-manager of TMG Makerspace, hosted within Tshimologong Precinct, the digital innovation incubator of WITS University (2018 onwards).
From 2014 onwards Mia became passionately involved in the Maker movement and co-creates alongside various makerspaces around South Africa; participating in, coordinating and fostering Maker events, talks, conferences and collaborations. In the ‘Maker family’ she finds a like-minded community of change-makers to collaborate with and develop and implement the message of ‘Make (or mend) it yourself. Learn something, teach something. Share knowledge and skills generously. Change the world’. Her dream and goal is to find, create and sustain connections and opportunities between Makers [brilliant hands + minds + hearts] and the resources that make this positive change possible, whether through events showcases, edifying collaborations or future Maker residencies.
Session 1 — University Makerspaces (10:00 am — 11:20 am)
Professor Rowena Barrett, ‘Drivers for Entrepreneurship and Creativity at University’, Remaking the Maker Movement, QUT Faculty of Business and Law, 3 February 2021, https://youtu.be/A0n2qGff3BI
Stephanie Piper, ‘Regional Academic Makerspaces’, Remaking the Maker Movement, QUT Faculty of Business and Law, 3 February 2021, https://youtu.be/vbC5PL5per4
Vince Kelly, ‘The Journey of Building a World-Class Educational Makerspace at The University of Queensland’, Remaking the Maker Movement ,QUT Faculty of Business and Law, 3 February 2021, https://youtu.be/INSGwLOnSPI
Mia van Zyl, ‘An Ecosystem Approach to Makerspace Sustainability within a Digital Innovation Precinct in Johannesburg, South Africa’, Remaking the Maker Movement, QUT Faculty of Business and Law, 3 February 2021, https://youtu.be/D-geixTRnHM
November 10, 2020
Legal avenues to Tobacco Endgame goal
QUT Media, 11 November 2020
11th November 2020
A multi-stranded strategy is needed to reach the lofty goal of the NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence on Achieving the Tobacco Endgame (CREATE), says a chief investigator and co-director of the project’s legal dimension, QUT Professor Matthew Rimmer.
Ending the tobacco industry will take a mix of strategiesSuccessful legal strategies from around the world consideredAustralia has led the way with plain packaging and won court cases against itCourt upheld tobacco ban in South Africa to cut smokers’ COVID riskProfessor Rimmer co-authored the influential 2008 paper The Case for the Plain Packaging of Tobacco Products and has researched global legal challenges to the tobacco industry extensively.
“The centre’s researchers will take a global view to investigate for the best mix of policy strategy to put the tobacco industry out of business in Australia and New Zealand,” Professor Rimmer said.
“Australia led the way with plain packaging and New Zealand and other countries have followed suit, but the tobacco industry continues to delay and frustrate other countries’ attempts to follow Australia’s lead in plain packaging and other measures.
“We are looking at how WHO’s tobacco control measures have been implemented in various jurisdictions.”
Class actions and tobacco liability are legal avenues to oppose tobacco sales that are on rise.
“A court in Quebec has ordered tobacco distributors to pay $15 billion to victims of lung, throat and emphysema. Imperial, Benson & Hedges and Rothmans all tried to go into bankruptcy to avoid liability.
“Courts are assisting the tobacco opponents in other ways. South Africa put in place a complete tobacco ban during the COVID lockdown because smokers are more vulnerable to COVID and its serious effects. The ban was tested in court and was upheld.”
Professor Rimmer said the tobacco industry had taken to social media to encourage young people to take up smoking and become addicted.
“Anti-tobacco bodies have made gains in Australia and other countries through higher tobacco taxes and restricting mass media advertising and sport sponsorship. However, Big Tobacco have now been deploying social media to target the next generation of smokers.
“The Campaign for Tobacco-free Kids in the US have called upon the Federal Trade Commission to better regulate tobacco advertising on social media,” he said.
“Weaker regulation of social media complaints in US has hampered the move to stop this deceptive advertising while Instagram influencers have reported the tobacco-industry’s attempts to contract them to use cigarettes as background props in their posts.”
Professor Rimmer said another strategy to be considered was tobacco divestment.
“Tobacco industry opponents have called for superannuation, pension and sovereign wealth funds to divest of tobacco holdings. This strategy has been copied by climate change activists with some success.
“Retail restriction such as licensing of retailers to sell tobacco products or mandating where shops selling tobacco can be located are also mooted.
“All anti-smoking policy measures are contended by the tobacco industry. A big issue is ‘tobacco interference’ such as tobacco donations, lobbying and pressure to stop restrictions on advertising or places where tobacco can be sold are part of the industry’s ongoing arsenal.”
Professor Rimmer said public health bodies such as the Cancer Council were keen on spatial bans on where smoking is permitted and had been instrumental in banning smoking in workplaces and public places to protect people from passive smoke.
“Public health policies are working to denormalise and delegitimize smoking and tactics include how to promote quit smoking advice through trusted figures in at-risk communities.”
“New Zealand and Finland’s stated ambition is to smoke-free while Australia’s current goal is 10 per cent but that is not an endgame, we need a commitment shut down the tobacco industry for good.”
QUT Media contacts:
Niki Widdowson, 07 3138 2999 or n.widdowson@qut.edu.au
After hours: Rose Trapnell, 0407 585 901, media@qut.edu.au.
Niki Widdowson, ‘Legal Avenues to Tobacco Endgame Goal’, QUT Media, 11 November 2020, https://www.qut.edu.au/news?id=170928
November 6, 2020
QUT Climate Business Symposium — 5 September 2017
Research Symposium
5 September 2017
Climate Change, Capitalism and Corporations
Please join members of the Intellectual Property and Innovation Law Research Program for a half-day workshop.
This event is a research workshop focused upon the role of corporations in respect of climate change. The various speakers will consider how managers and corporations interpret and respond to the climate crisis. Professor Christopher Wright from the University of Sydney will give a keynote speech on the ‘Climate Crisis, Corporate Imaginaries and Creative Self-Destruction’. The four panellists will consider the role of business in climate action from a variety of disciplinary perspectives — including law, business, regulation, and the environment.
Chair: Dr Angela Daly
Angela is a Vice Chancellor’s Research Fellow in QUT’s Faculty of Law and a research associate in the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology and Society (Netherlands). She is a comparative socio-legal scholar of technology and is the author of Socio-Legal Aspects of the 3D Printing Revolution (Palgrave 2016) and Private Power, Online Information Flows and EU Law: Mind the Gap (Hart 2016). She holds a PhD in Law from the European University Institute, which was joint winner of the 2013–2015 Fondazione Calamandrei Frosini prize for best thesis in legal informatics and information law. Prior to QUT, she was previously Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Media and Communications Law at the Swinburne Institute for Social Research.
Speakers:
Climate crisis, corporate imaginaries and creative self-destruction
https://medium.com/media/3763e4100ee146bd8875847a8ea1dfd1/hrefAbstract: In the space of two centuries of industrialization, humanity’s embrace of fossil fuel energy has changed the very chemistry of the atmosphere and oceans with profound consequences. We now face a grim future; large tracts of the Earth rendered uninhabitable, the collapse of global food production, the acidification of the oceans, substantial sea-level rise and storms and droughts of growing intensity. So how has it come to this? How to paraphrase Elizabeth Kolbert, has a technologically advanced society chosen in essence to destroy itself? In this presentation I argue that the particular neoliberal variant of late capitalism that now dominates global political-economy not only obfuscates the need for a fundamental questioning of the capitalist imaginary of endless growth and resource exploitation, but exacerbates the problem by framing business and markets as the only means of responding to the crisis. In essence, the prevailing political view is that capitalism is not a cause of climate change but as an answer to it. In particular, the presentation will focus on three core imaginaries that underpin our creative self-destruction: ‘business as usual’, ‘green business’ and ‘natural capitalism’. The presentation will explore the key dimensions of these founding belief systems, as well as alternative imaginaries that are likely to emerge as the climate crisis worsens.
Climate change does not play by the rules. As Robyn Kundis Craig has observed, ‘climate change is the trickster of the 21st century.’ 1 Timothy Morton emphasises its ‘uncanny’ nature.
Abstract: What paths, therefore, should researchers pursue in order to undertake research into climate change? While scientific investigation into climate change impacts and research into technological and regulatory partial fixes are clearly important, other sorts of research are also critical if we are to come to terms with climate change as trickster: big picture interdisciplinary research which does not necessarily have any political or commercial value in the knowledge economy.
In this paper, drawing upon Margaret Thornton’s work on the corporatised university, the renegade scientists and utopian visionaries in Margaret Atwood’s Maddaddam trilogy and the walkaway researchers in Cory Doctorow’s latest novel, I shall reflect upon the possibilities for creative rule-bending research into climate change as trickster within the constraints of contemporary Australian corporatised academia.
Alternative economic imaginaries — too little too late? The New Economy Network Australia
https://medium.com/media/9201f2dafdf11156465955b5dfd4fe82/hrefAbstract: “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete” — R. Buckminster Fuller
If we turn our attention away from the towering steel and concrete, the pollution and the plastic, the sheer violence and noise of contemporary consumer capitalism, and steady our gaze on the quieter spaces — the spaces between the towers and beyond the noise — we can find a prolific blossoming of alternatives to the current capitalist crises. Solar farms, community gardens, democratic social enterprises, urban agriculture, community currencies, platform cooperativism, peer-to-peer support, First Nations community driven sovereignty and economic initiatives, land restoration cooperatives, wildlife protection projects, aquaculture farms nurturing heat resilient coral for a climate changed world … the list goes on.
It is arguable that one of the most important challenges of our time, in this second decade of the 21st Century, is to connect, amplify and strengthen the already diverse elements of the ‘alternative economy’, so that it no longer grows in the shadows and the quiet places, but can replace the destruction of the material and intellectual legacy of industrialization and hyper-consumer-capitalism. The New Economy Network Australia (NENA) was created in late 2016 by around 100 individuals and organisations who see the amplification and strengthening of ‘alternative’ economic approaches as an important way to challenge the current system and create a sustainable, livable future. NENA is ‘under construction’ and in this paper I’ll give an overview of what it is, why it was created and what its plans to do.
Greenwashing: Trademark Law, Consumer Rights and Internet Domain Names
https://medium.com/media/c25c27d3a0d26208f47df5630e698812/hrefAbstract: Greenwashing is a pernicious problem, which involves misleading and deceptive representations by corporations in respect of the environment. There are a number of legal responses — spanning trade mark law, consumer rights, and internet domain names.
First, this paper considers the role of trade mark law in respect of green branding, environmental messaging, and greenwashing. It considers the action of the United States Patent Trade Mark Office in respect of ‘green’ trade mark applications, which have been descriptive, generic, and misleading. It also examines the response of IP Australia and the High Court of Australia to trade mark applications in respect of the colour ‘Green’. It also highlights the use of certification trade marks to promote credible and authentic eco-labels — such as the Nordic Swan EcoLabel, the Wind-Made Label developed by Vestas and Bloomberg, and the Carbon Trust’s Carbon Footprint.
Second, this paper examines the role of consumer regulators in regulating greenwashing, carbon scams, and astroturfing. The Federal Trade Commission in the United States has issued revised ‘Green Guides’ to tackle the problem of greenwashing. There has been a striking complaint by Forest Ethics against the Sustainable Forestry Initiative. The ACCC has also developed guidelines in respect of green marketing, and has taken action on occasion. The Advertising Standards Authority in the United Kingdom has also been active in addressing false and misleading advertising.
Third, this paper examines the role of Internet Domain Names in respect of environmental communication. It provides a case study of the successful bid by Big Room in respect of the Dot Eco application.
Intellectual Property, Climate Change, and Food Security
https://medium.com/media/e51adf4388dff48f8a91f0921bce7835/hrefAbstract: It is estimated that almost 1 billion people in the world are food insecure. These people are primarily rural smallholders in the developing world. The causes of structural food insecurity are complex and inter-related. Amongst them are(i) the expansion of intellectual property rights, which has disrupted traditional farming practices, the development of (ii) export orientation in food production, (iii) rural poverty, (iv) land grabs and now (v) climate change. The impact of climate change on food insecurity is two-fold. Firstly, the availability of arable land will reduce as the climate declines. Secondly, some states have begun positioning themselves for this scenario by buying up agricultural land in the developing world. Both of these factors will only heighten food insecurity in the developing world. A coordinated global response is required to safeguard the livelihoods and welfare of the food insecure. This must involve a reassessment of the legal framework within which food security has been allowed to become imperilled.
Parallel Tracks? The National Relationship between Intellectual Property and Climate Change — Professor Abbe Brown, University of Aberdeen, Scotland. QUT Faculty of Law, 17 August 2017
https://medium.com/media/863c84ca056d5135c1e9d5af3d4c2aa3/hrefAbstract:
Climate change has been recognised through international agreements, most recently the Paris Agreement, as a key problem of contemporary society. Technology and its role in dissemination and sharing is one means of addressing this, as can be seen for example from the increasing importance accorded to the United Nations Framework on Climate Change’s Technology Mechanism. The fact that technologies may be the subject of intellectual property rights, held in private hands, receives limited attention in climate change negotiations and certainly in final form documents. The problems arising from this have been explored by scholars (Rimmer, Barton) as have arguments that issues could be addressed through taking new approaches to the fragmentation of international law and to treaty interpretation (Frankel, Young, Grosse-Ruse Khan). Yet the relationship between climate change, technology and intellectual property is actually taking place at a national level, and this issue is underexplored. The paper being discussed in this presentation forms part of a book project addressing this, taking the UK jurisdictions as an example. Reference will be made to UK intellectual property legislation and its limited engagement with climate change; and to climate change legislation from Westminster and from Holyrood which imposes obligations on states and on public authorities to meet targets, to report on actions taken and to have regard to technology when setting targets and budgets and when making energy efficiency and low carbon plans. A strong policy theme in Scotland and at UK level is to encourage developing a variety of technologies rather than to be dependent upon one. Yet policy and legislation are silent about the potential for the impact of IP. Drawing on this framework, this presentation will present a hypothetical case study drawing from actual events. It will discuss the potential for conflict, for court adjudication and for new judicial approaches; and will make some preliminary suggestions for new court based relationships between intellectual property, technology and climate change which would be of transnational relevance.
Biography
Dr Abbe E. L. Brown is a legal researcher and teacher at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. From 1 August 2017 she will be a Personal Chair. Abbe’s main research interest is the laws relating to intellectual property and innovation, their intersection with other legal fields, and the impact of this on key societal challenges. Key publications are Intellectual Property, Human Rights and Competition: Access to Essential Innovation and Technology (Edward Elgar 2012), the edited collection Environmental Technologies, Intellectual Property and Climate Change (Edward Elgar 2013) and several editions of the respected OUP textbook Contemporary Intellectual Property: Law and Policy.
Funding sources for her research include the Modern Law Review, the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland and the Wellcome Trust. Before returning to academia, Abbe practised as a solicitor specialising in intellectual property, competition (including ACCC v Boral) and commercial litigation in London, Melbourne and Edinburgh.
Abbe’s current projects involve intellectual property, climate change and technology; intellectual property, disability and personhood; and with Professor Charlotte Waelde a forthcoming edited collection Intellectual Property and the Creative Industries. In July and August 2017 she is spending time in Australia working on her forthcoming monograph Intellectual Property, Climate Change and Technology: managing national legal intersections, relationships and conflicts.
Divestment and Social Change — 22 November 2016
QUT Intellectual Property and Innovation Law Research Program
Research Symposium
Tuesday, 22 November 2016
12:00 pm — 2:30 pm AEST
Presenters in this symposium will explore the social, financial, and legal debates regarding the rise of divestment movements around public health, climate change and asylum seeker detention centres.
In the field of public health, there has been a push to encourage governments, pension funds, and superannuation to divest from tobacco companies. Similarly, in the area of environment and climate change, the fossil fuel divestment movement has come to the fore. In the field of human rights, there is interest in the use of divestment strategies as a means to disrupt investment in companies profiting from offshore detention centres. There has been discussion about the use of divestment in respect of other fields of activity — such as in relation to armaments and munitions.
The symposium will provide a cross-disciplinary, scholarly consideration of the politics of divestment, featuring experts from law, business, and civil society.
SESSION 1: Ethical Investment Chair: Carol Richards
James Thier, Future Super Ethical Investment
https://medium.com/media/db56be70a7f78f56ffe8b7a4faa96cd4/hrefJames is a director of Future Super and member of its investment committee. He is a founder and Chair of Corporate Analysis Enhanced Responsibility (CAER), a highly regarded, independent ESG research house.He co-founded ASX-listed Australian Ethical Investment and was an executive director for 20 years, creating world-first product innovations. Prior he held senior positions within peak bodies of the credit union and worked in local government and academia.An inaugural board member of what is now the Responsible Investment Association of Australasia (RIAA), an industry body, James is recognised as a pioneer in the field. He was awarded a Churchill Fellowship in 2006.
Shen Narayanasamy, No Business in Abuse, GetUp Detention, Human Rights, and Divestment
https://medium.com/media/b4cf30720410ba672fb6a05187a4286c/hrefNo Business in Abuse (NBIA) focus upon corporate complicity in abuses within Australia’s immigration system. NBIA and Get Up have formed a partnership to power a broad, people-powered movement to shine a light on the corporations making money from an abusive detention centre system, and to take practical actions to end it.
Brynn O’Brien, Business and Human Rights Advisor, The Australia Institute The Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund and Human Rights
https://medium.com/media/6a94ee0243cc15883a1f6f2cf0471447/hrefBrynn O’Brien is a lawyer and researcher, looking at the human rights impacts of the private sector. She has worked across a broad range of issues and industry sectors where human rights and business activity collide, from labour issues in the supply chain to anti-discrimination matters and human rights issues in immigration detention. Brynn is an expert on the effective implementation of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, and the power of international frameworks as tools for advocacy. She is involved in shaping the business and human rights field in Australia and abroad through her membership of various multistakeholder groups, involvement in regional capacity building initiatives, and academic research and writing.
Matthew Rimmer, QUT Tobacco Divestment
https://medium.com/media/ca595e1b870bde19813b74257b2f1bc9/hrefDr Matthew Rimmer is a Professor in Intellectual Property and Innovation Law at the Faculty of Law, at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT). He is a leader of the QUT Intellectual Property and Innovation Law research program, and a member of the QUT Digital Media Research Centre (QUT DMRC) the QUT Australian Centre for Health Law Research (QUT ACHLR), and the QUT International Law and Global Governance Research Program. Rimmer has published widely on copyright law and information technology, patent law and biotechnology, access to medicines, plain packaging of tobacco products, intellectual property and climate change, and Indigenous Intellectual Property.
SESSION 2: Fossil Fuel Divestment Chair: Matthew Rimmer
Carol Richards, QUT Divestment as a New Social Movement
https://medium.com/media/4285d6e80e3e51ce7ed3beaeb1dc7601/hrefDr Carol Richards Vice-Chancellor’s Senior Research Fellow in the QUT Business School. As an environmental sociologist, Carol specialises in food security, sustainable food and natural resources and governance. Her recent work focuses on fossil fuel divestment, presenting critical insights into the enactment of climate justice through market mechanisms. Carol draws upon social movement theory to examine the game-changing strategies of the globally-coordinated fossil fuel divestment movement.
Robyn Mayes, QUT Divestment and Neoliberal Logics
https://medium.com/media/f9453ff84ab86b62a449b9ee252458b6/hrefDr Robyn Mayes is a Vice-Chancellor’s Senior Research Fellow in the QUT Business School. Robyn’s current research is concerned with the development and theorisation of global production networks, inclusive of questions of labour agency, corporate social responsibility, local community/ies, gender and senses of place. Her work on fossil fuel divestment explores how the divestment movement achieves its aims in disrupting flows of capital around the fossil fuel industry, but in doing so, reproduces neoliberalizing logics by reinforcing a shift away from the state as the key corporate regulator.
Carly Baque, Fossil Free QUT Fossil Fuel Divestment and Higher Ed
https://medium.com/media/eb58aaf38ed02806c4bdad2ed3a6143b/hrefCarly is an undergraduate law and economics student at QUT. She is currently a co-coordinator of Fossil Free QUT and is involved in the broader community with the Divest from Detention movement and a local renewable energy co-op in West End, Energetic Communities Association Inc. Carly has also been nominated to speak at the 2017 QUT TEDX event about the future of the fossil fuel divestment movement.”
Moira Williams Fossil Fuel Divestment — Councils, Cities, and Governments
https://medium.com/media/c9b33ecab2e94afba2a4163b5856a823/hrefOriginally from Sydney, Moira started her career as an ecologist, policy maker and strategist. Her growing passion is to empower people to challenge corporate power and take action for social change. She has been actively involved in grassroots campaigns fighting coal and gas projects across the country for a decade. She has spent the last couple of years working in Northern Queensland to build peaceful resistance to the proposed Galilee basin coal mines, and is now based in Brisbane working as a community campaigner with 350.org — a global network of groups working for climate justice.
This forum is a collaboration between Professor Matthew Rimmer, QUT Faculty of Law and Drs Robyn Mayes and Carol Richards of the Work/Industry Futures program, QUT Business School.
November 5, 2020
Copyright Law and the Creative Industries
Research Symposium, QUT Faculty of Law, 29 October 2020
QUT Art MuseumQUT Faculty of Law
Thursday, 29 October 2020
10:00am to 3:00pm
Z1064, Gibson Room, Level 10, Z Block
QUT Gardens Point Campus
OVERVIEW
This event will focus upon copyright law and the creative industries. It will bring together legal scholars, policy-makers, and practitioners; creative artists from an array of disciplines; as well as theorists of new media and digital technologies. To begin with, this event will consider the origins of copyright law, policy, and practice. The speakers will explore their recent historical work about the foundation and evolution of copyright law and policy.
This symposium will explore how copyright law has affected a range of cultural practitioners, spectrum of creative industries. There will be a discussion of copyright law and literary works — looking at recent controversies over shadow texts. There will be a contemplation of the mixed precedents in respect of copyright law and appropriation art. There will be an analysis of litigation over copyright law and musical works — in light of the Blurred Lines decision. There will also be a discussion of how copyright law has operated in practice in respect of the performing arts, cinematographic films, and television broadcasts.
This symposium will consider to what extent Australian copyright law has kept up with new information technologies, and digital media. There will be a re-evaluation of the Digital Agenda Act, and its operation over the past 20 years. There will be a consideration of the impact of new laws in respect of site-blocking and search-filtering. The mega-litigation over Google Books, YouTube, and other Alphabet entities will be considered. As part of the symposium, there will be a consideration of whether our copyright laws are fit for purpose — given new developments in 3d printing, the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and robotics.
To finish up with, this event will examine copyright law and various forms of cultural rights. It will look at twenty years of moral rights protection in Australia — and the relative performance of the regime. It will consider the development of performers rights in respect of audio and audio-visual works. It will evaluate the operation of the right of resale for visual artists in Australia. It will finally investigate what progress — if any — has been made towards the protection of Indigenous intellectual property in Australia, and the implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples 2007.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF TRADITIONAL OWNERS
In keeping with the spirit of Reconciliation, we acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the lands where QUT now stands — and recognise that these have always been places of teaching and learning.
We wish to pay respect to their Elders — past, present and emerging — and acknowledge the important role Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people continue to play within the QUT community.
Session 1. Copyright Law and Creative Arts
Covert and Overt Plagiarism: On Poetry and Theft
Associate Professor Sarah Holland-Batt
Dr Ella Jeffery
https://medium.com/media/64195c57d16fc22beca23de62a6e464d/hrefAbstract
In 1920, T.S. Eliot delivered an axiomatic pronouncement which has shaped how most poets have thought about poetry and originality for the last century: “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal,” he wrote in The Sacred Wood, “bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.” A hundred years on, this paper returns to Eliot’s dictum to evaluate current thinking about poetry and theft in the literary field, focussing on recent case studies of “uncreative writing” — wherein theft is overt and central to the poet’s creative enterprise, as in forms including the cento, found poem, erasure poem, remix or the readymade — as well as recent poetry plagiarism scandals, wherein theft is covert and concealed. In doing so, we seek to define and make explicit the often tacit conventions in contemporary literary practice relating to appropriation and plagiarism from the perspective of the poet-practitioner. We will argue that disclosure and documentation — through epigraphs, notes and other means of acknowledgement — are central to the so-called “cento defence,” allowing the poet to present the work of others as their own, whereas alterations, especially minor substitutions, and the absence of disclosure, are central to a poetic conception of plagiarism.
Biographies
Associate Professor Sarah Holland-Batt is an award-winning poet, editor and critic whose most recent book, The Hazards, won the 2016 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Poetry. Her honours include fellowships from Yaddo and MacDowell colonies in the United States, a Chateau de Lavigny Fellowship in Switzerland, a Hawthornden Fellowship in Scotland, and the Australia Council Literature Residency at the B.R. Whiting Studio in Rome, among others. In 2016 she was the first poet to be awarded a Sidney Myer Creative Fellowship, which recognises “outstanding talent and exceptional artistic courage.” Among many leadership roles in the literary sector, she has served as a judge of the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards, and is presently Chair of Australian Book Review. In 2020, supported by the Judith Neilson Institute for Journalism and Ideas and the Copyright Agency, she was appointed to write a weekly poetry column, Poet’s Voice, for The Australian.
Dr Ella Jeffery is a poet, editor and academic. Her debut collection of poems, Dead Bolt, won the Puncher & Wattmann Prize for a First Book of Poems and was published by the press in 2020. In 2019 she received the Queensland Premier’s Young Publishers and Writers Award, and the Mick Dark Fellowship for Environmental Writing. Her poetry has appeared widely in journals and anthologies including Best Australian Poems, Meanjin, Griffith Review and Southerly. She co-edits Stilts Journal, a triannual digital poetry journal publishing poets from around Australia, and is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane.
The Exploitation of Art and Culture and the Law
Stephanie Parkin
https://medium.com/media/c67f194f4c9c460cec1685159ebcab6b/hrefAbstract
This Masters’ research focuses on the 2017 House of Representatives Standing Committee on Indigenous Affairs Parliamentary Inquiry into the ‘growing presence of inauthentic Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ‘style’ art and craft products for sale across Australia’. The thesis explores and gives priority to the evidence submitted by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participants to the Inquiry and positions Inauthentic Art and Craft as a product of colonial occupation and power. The thesis investigates a number of relevant fields of intellectual property law. Such analysis considers the question: ‘How can the law protect Aboriginal cultural expression from exploitation?’ This session will also briefly cover the current issues and debate surrounding copyright and the Aboriginal flag.
Biography
Stephanie Parkin belongs to the Quandamooka People of Minjerribah (North Stradbroke Island). With a background in intellectual property law, Stephanie completed a Masters of Philosophy at the QUT Law Faculty researching the issue of inauthentic Aboriginal art and craft products in the souvenir market. Stephanie is the Chair of the Indigenous Art Code which promotes fair and ethical trading between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists and art dealers, and also works part time at the Copyright Agency.
Session 2 — Copyright Law and Performance
Find the Cost of Freedom — Balancing Rights in a World Out of Balance
Dr John Willsteed
https://medium.com/media/907e0c03249c7ca48a40ef3b0a6ce9d6/hrefAbstract
How can the law help or hinder the processes of creation, from the perspective of a musician AND academic? Copyright law purports to protect the product, and therefore the creator, from theft or misuse. But this can be at odds with the very notion of creation, in which we borrow from the past to make the present, and to influence the future.
Biography
John Willsteed remembers most of a long and varied career as a musician, travelling the world and leaving a legacy of hummable bass-lines. He has performed with many iconic Australian acts including The Go-Betweens, The Apartments, The Riptides and Ed Kuepper. He has been a guitarist in award winning Brisbane band Halfway since 2010. He is a graduate of the AFTRS, Griffith University and QUT, and has an abiding interest in the musical history of his hometown (Brisbane) and the ways in which it might be told. As a sound editor and composer he has received national and international awards including three AFI Awards for sound. Willsteed also embodies a deep commitment to the wider concept and reality of the creative industries. He has acted on the board of QPIX and was state representative of the Australian Screen Sound Guild. He has been president of Feral Arts management committee since 2005, and currently serves on the board of the Queensland Music Festival. He has been a teacher at private film schools, TAFE and universities since 2000 and his current role at QUT is Senior Lecturer in the School of Creative Practice.
‘Don’t Let This Flop’: TikTok Creators’ Strategic Improprieties
D. Bondy Valdovinos Kaye (Queensland University of Technology) and Dr Crystal Abidin (Curtin University)
https://medium.com/media/258fbb8741ab0e0ca1db47dc2006e813/hrefAbstract
TikTok is a short-video digital media platform that encourages users to create and share audio-visual content between 15–60 seconds long. A key appeal of TikTok is its platform features that facilitate seamless content creation through innovative re-use. With a few taps on a mobile device, users can create their own videos using the same visual formats or audio clips from the video they were previously watching, through practices of mimicry that have been studied as “templatability” (Leaver, Highfield, & Abidin, 2020). TikTok creators who aspire to amplify their following and visibility often study the algorithmically curated homepage (‘For You Page’) and engage in strategies to increase their chances of appearing on it, often by siphoning attention and gamifying the TikTok algorithm. In other cases, they involve deliberately copying and misattributing trending video and audio content using TikTok’s platform features.
The features and affordances of social media platforms can ‘nudge’ users and creators towards IP infringement. However, this rarely leads to any formal legal action in non-commercial User Generated Content UGC) settings (Tan, 2018). Rather than focus on commercial exploitation of UGC, previous studies suggest that creators prioritise giving credit — or the moral right of attribution — as increasingly important on digital platforms such as Deviant Art (Perkel, 2016), Instagram (Meese & Hagedorn, 2019) and YouTube (Pappalardo & Meese, 2019). At present, the features and affordances of TikTok offer limited avenues for commercialization but valorises creators of popular video or audio challenges and memes (Kaye, 2020). Creators want to go viral on TikTok and some will do so by catapulting or feeding off the success of others.
Biography
D. Bondy Valdovinos Kaye is the Editorial Assistant for Media Industries Journal, a PhD candidate in the Digital Media Research Centre at Queensland University of Technology, and an avid musician. His research interests include digital music, cultural policy, and platform studies. He holds a Bachelor’s of Arts in Psychology and a Master’s of Science in Mass Communications from Kansas State University, USA.
Session 3 Copyright Law and Culture
Open GLAM: Copyright Law, 3D Printing, and Cultural Heritage
Matthew Rimmer
https://medium.com/media/9bd53ab4d2a2cd4db52dd58b35e62ac5/hrefAbstract
This presentation provides an account of empirical research in respect of copyright law, 3D Printing, and cultural institutions — such as galleries, libraries, archives, and museums. It considers the work of Michael Weinberg and the Engelberg Center on Innovation Law and Policy at the New York University School of Law in respect of the Open GLAM Movement. It examines efforts to improve upon the use of open access 3D printing by the GLAM sector. This paper explores the use of makerspaces by libraries. It looks at the networked approach of the Amsterdam Library system. This paper considers the use of 3D printing to make artistic works accessible for those with disabilities. In particular, it considers Klimt’s The Kiss at the Belvedere Museum in Austria, and its use of scanning and 3D printing of the Gustave Klimt painting The Kiss. This paper focuses upon the digital rendering of the bust of Nefertiti, generated from the Neues Museum’s 3D scan in Germany. It considers the role of 3D printing in the debate over repatriation of cultural artefacts and heritage from the British Museum. This paper focuses on the project Scan the World. It looks at the efforts of the Smithsonian to use Creative Commons licenses to allow for open access to its collection — including 3D scanning and 3D printing . This paper examines the support of the Creative Commons movement for the Free Palmyra Project. It looks at the Free Palmyra project, and the efforts to restore pieces of cultural heritage lost in armed conflict.
Biography
Dr Matthew Rimmer is a Professor in Intellectual Property and Innovation Law at the Faculty of Law, at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT). He has published widely on copyright law and information technology, patent law and biotechnology, access to medicines, plain packaging of tobacco products, intellectual property and climate change, Indigenous Intellectual Property, and intellectual property and trade. He is undertaking research on intellectual property and 3D printing; the regulation of robotics and artificial intelligence; and intellectual property and public health (particularly looking at the coronavirus COVID-19). His work is archived at QUT ePrints, SSRN Abstracts, Bepress Selected Works, and Open Science Framework.
Creativity, Culture, Copyright and COVID-19
Elliott Bledsoe
https://medium.com/media/018e068c7f0a539e6a851c309e85ed14/hrefAbstract
Amidst the closure of arts and cultural venues and cancellation of arts events early in the coronavirus pandemic many artists and cultural organisations shifted to providing access to creative works and content online. This increased reliance on digital technologies to connect with audiences has exposed the limitations of the Copyright Act for creators, institutions and audiences.
Biography
Elliott Bledsoe is a Copyright Officer, with the Australian Digital Alliance and Australian Libraries Copyright Committee. Elliott Bledsoe has more than 10-years experience in copyright. He advocates for the public interest in copyright and for increased copyright literacy in the arts and cultural sectors. Currently he works part-time with Australian Digital Alliance and the Australian Libraries Copyright Committee. He is also the Co-lead of the Australian chapter of Creative Commons.
Session 4 Intellectual Property and the Right to Repair
Copyright and the Right to Repair
Professor Leanne Wiseman and Dr Kanchana Kariyawasam
https://medium.com/media/84f55e3ff014ef3f920ca0ec4037c392/hrefAbstract
The inability to repair and modify consumer goods is increasingly and globally important as countries transition to Circular Economies. The inability of Australians to repair their smart goods or to access repair or service information has a significant impact on not only the Australian economy, but also its economic future. At the heart of legal and regulatory barriers to repair are the IP rights exerted by the manufactures. This paper will focus on the role that copyright plays in inhibiting consumer’s ability to repair their goods.
Manufacturers of digital enabled goods, such as our smart phones, smart watches and the myriad of smart devices that now inhabit our homes, use copyright in the computer software to ‘lock’ up consumer goods. They rely upon the copyright scheme of technological protection measures (TPMs), developed in the 1990s to protect music, film and other digital works to prohibit access to the underlying software programs that are now embedded in everyday smart consumables. In addition to TPMs, copyright owners are using copyright law to deny access to basic repair information in product manuals. This has attracted much recent attention, particularly in relation to access to repair information for ventilators, that have been so urgently needed during the Covid 19 crisis.
This paper will explore how copyright owner’s excessive control over the owner’s ability to repair and modify physical goods has given rise to the international right to repair movement. In so doing, it will consider the different regulatory approaches being taken to the Right to Repair internationally, and explores how reform of IP, particularly copyright law, could rebalance the competing demands of private incentives for product and technology innovation and the public’s concerns over access to goods that have digital technologies embedded within them.
Biographies
Professor Leanne Wiseman is a Professor of Intellectual Property Law at the Griffith Law School, Griffith University. Her research addresses critical questions about the role intellectual property plays in hindering or enabling access to new technologies. She has published widely on intellectual property, in particular, copyright law, and its intersection with new digital technologies. Her current research focus is on intellectual property and the right to repair and legal implications of the digitalisation occurring in consumables, motor vehicles and agricultural machinery.
Dr Kanchana Kariyawasam is a Senior Lecturer in Griffith Business School at Griffith University. Kanchana’s primary research interests lie in the field of intellectual property (IP) law and her publications are in the fields of intellectual property and consumer Law. Kanchana completed her PhD in IP Law at Griffith and holds Masters Degree in IP from the University of Queensland. She has published widely on copyright law and information technology, patent law and biotechnology, and access to medicines.
The Right to Repair in Australia: Patent Law and 3D Printing in a Circular Economy
Professor Matthew Rimmer
https://medium.com/media/21c0bffaa3ac8537af8a6d8c19579402/hrefAbstract
In light of the larger international debate about sustainable development and the circular economy, this paper considers patent law and the right to repair in Australia. It provides a critical evaluation of the decision of the Full Court of the Federal Court in Calidad Pty Ltd v. Seiko Epson Corporation [2019] FCAFC 115 — as well as a preview of the High Court of Australia consideration of the matter. It highlights the divergence between the judicial approach of the Full Court of the Federal Court, and the policy approach taken by the Productivity Commission in respect of patent law, the right to repair, and competition policy. As a result of the outcome in this decision, it is recommended that there is a need to provide for greater recognition of the right to repair under patent law. In the spirit of modernising Australia’s regime, this paper makes a number of recommendations for patent law reform — particularly in light of 2D printing, 3D printing, additive manufacturing, and digital fabrication. It calls upon the legal system to embody some of the ideals, which have been embedded in the Maker’s Bill of Rights, and the iFixit Repair Manifesto.
Biography
Dr Matthew Rimmer is a Professor in Intellectual Property and Innovation Law at the Faculty of Law, at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT). He has published widely on copyright law and information technology, patent law and biotechnology, access to medicines, plain packaging of tobacco products, intellectual property and climate change, Indigenous Intellectual Property, and intellectual property and trade. He is undertaking research on intellectual property and 3D printing; the regulation of robotics and artificial intelligence; and intellectual property and public health (particularly looking at the coronavirus COVID-19). His work is archived at QUT ePrints, SSRN Abstracts, Bepress Selected Works, and Open Science Framework.
Session 5. Copyright Law and New Technologies
Riddles Wrapped in Enigmas within Mysteries: AI, Secrets, Online Games and Copyright
Dr. Bruce Arnold
https://medium.com/media/560adf29b8c9141b61482422ca28024c/hrefAbstract
Networked computer games are a vibrant creative industry. In the emerging attention economy they may be as financially and culturally significant as the movies. Increasingly the user experience in those games will be determined by artificial intelligence founded on interrogation of billions of daily interactions with players across the globe. This presentation explores the interaction of artificial intelligence, copyright, trade secrets and contract in new world of massive multiplayer online games such as Animal Crossing. It argues that the richest experiences in that world will be scripted by AI, not auteurs. Do we need a new copyright paradigm?
Biography
Dr Bruce Baer Arnold teaches technology and intellectual property law at the University of Canberra. He has written extensively on data protection and the regulation of disruptive technologies. He has a particular interest in robotics and artificial intelligence, including the accountability of algorithmic decision-making and personhood for AI. He is currently writing a book on law, culture and markets around the Animal Crossing New Horizons game platform.
GPT-3 — Copyright Law and Power
Dr Michael Guihot
https://medium.com/media/788d62125012720dd3854f140fb297ac/hrefAbstract
Open AI’s third generation Generative Pre-trained Transformer is a language model that uses machine learning to generate text. The latest model is significantly better performing than GPT-2, not because of advances in algorithms, but because of the large amounts of data upon which it was trained. This raises issues of copyright in the original data, but also raises issues about copyright in GPT-3’s output.
Biography
Michael Guihot’s research investigates the intersection of new technology and law, including the regulation of artificial intelligence, and the impact of new technologies on power and governance. My current research investigates how changes in global power structures affect private and public governance, and the impact of new technology on legal institutions. I have published in international journals on the regulation of artificial intelligence, am co-author of the book Artificial Intelligence, Robots and the Law.
Lady Ada: Limor Fried, Adafruit Industries, Intellectual Property and Open Source Hardware
Matthew Rimmer
https://medium.com/media/298011548399232767e500780154cff6/hrefAbstract
This paper provides a profile of Limor Fried of Adafruit Industries — as an advocate of open source hardware, and a policy campaigner for intellectual property law reform. In terms of methodology, the work draws upon the techniques of biographical life writing, the media corporate case studies and the open source community mapping. This paper considers the copyright challenges for open source hardware — particularly with the Supreme Court of the United States decision on copyright subsistence in Star Athletica LLC. v. Varsity Brands Inc., and ongoing conflicts over technological protection measures. It reviews the trademark disputes of Adafruit Industries — looking at the matter of Fried v. Linco Inc. It explores the intervention of the Open Source Hardware Association in the design patent dispute in Luxembourg v. Home Expressions Inc. It analyses how Adafruit Industries has engaged in defensive patenting, and pushed for patent law reform with President Barack Obama. It finally considers the tensions between open source hardware and enhanced protection of trade secrets. The conclusion considers how open source hardware advocates such as Limor Fried can play an important role in intellectual property law reform in the future. It also explores current and future challenges for Adafruit Industries and open source hardware — including the current coronavirus COVID-19 public health crisis.
Biography
Dr Matthew Rimmer is a Professor in Intellectual Property and Innovation Law at the Faculty of Law, at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT). He has published widely on copyright law and information technology, patent law and biotechnology, access to medicines, plain packaging of tobacco products, intellectual property and climate change, Indigenous Intellectual Property, and intellectual property and trade. He is undertaking research on intellectual property and 3D printing; the regulation of robotics and artificial intelligence; and intellectual property and public health (particularly looking at the coronavirus COVID-19). His work is archived at QUT ePrints, SSRN Abstracts, Bepress Selected Works, and Open Science Framework.
Absentees
Unfortunately, due to unforeseen contingencies, Katya Henry and Dr Anne Matthew were unable to perform their presentations at the conference. We hope to provide a platform for their exciting and interesting talks at a future event.
29 October 2020 — Copyright Law and the Creative Industries
Copyright Law and the Creative Industries, Research Symposium, QUT Faculty of Law, 29 October 2020, https://drrimmer.medium.com/copyright-law-and-the-creative-industries-c86aee08d834
Session 1 — Copyright Law and the Creative Arts
1. Associate Professor Sarah Holland-Batt and Dr Ella Jeffery, ‘Covert and Overt Plagiarism: On Poetry and Theft’, QUT Faculty of Law, 29 October 2020, https://t.co/ZEAJPeOwVW?amp=1
2. Stephanie Parkin, ‘The Exploitation of Art and Culture and the Law’, QUT Faculty of Law, 29 October 2020, https://t.co/rvXqVHd0xZ?amp=1
Session 2 — Copyright Law and Performance
3. Dr John Willsteed, ‘Find the Cost of Freedom — Balancing Rights in a World Out of Balance’, QUT Faculty of Law, 29 October 2020, https://t.co/M1N6ZEW5EF?amp=1
4. D. Bondy Valdovinos Kaye and Dr Crystal Abidin, ‘Don’t let this Flop’: TikTok Creators’ Strategic Improprieties’, QUT Faculty of Law, 29 October 2020, https://t.co/tNYjb4oAg9?amp=1
Session 3 — Copyright Law and Culture
5. Professor Matthew Rimmer, ‘Open GLAM: Copyright Law, 3D Printing, and Cultural Heritage’, QUT Faculty of Law, 29 October 2020, https://t.co/9gD9Ex1i0E?amp=1
6. Elliott Bledsoe, ‘Creativity, Culture, Copyright and COVID-19’, QUT Faculty of Law, 29 October 2020, https://t.co/Jf6wJ40iGw?amp=1
Session 4 — Intellectual Property and the Right to Repair
7. Professor Leanne Wiseman and Dr Kanchana Kariyawasam, ‘Copyright and the Right to Repair’, QUT Faculty of Law, 29 October 2020, https://t.co/tpinaiB2bF?amp=1
8. Professor Matthew Rimmer. ‘The Right to Repair in Australia: Patent Law and 3D Printing in a Circular Economy’, QUT Faculty of Law, 29 October 2020, https://t.co/w8pjmuC8Ks?amp=1
Session 5 — Copyright Law and New Technologies
9. Dr. Bruce Arnold, ‘Riddles Wrapped in Enigmas within Mysteries: AI, Secrets, Online Games and Copyright’ QUT Faculty of Law, 29 October 2020, https://t.co/9WO9EbEERR?amp=1
10. Dr Michael Guihot, ‘GPT-3 — Copyright Law and Power’, QUT Faculty of Law, 29 October 2020, https://t.co/5h9VPxGszO?amp=1
11. Professor Matthew Rimmer, ‘Lady Ada: Limor Fried, Adafruit Industries, Intellectual Property, and Open Source Hardware’, QUT Faculty of Law, 29 October 2020, https://t.co/lZa5Xz57jN?amp=1
Credits
Front Page Picture — QUT Art Museum — http://www.artmuseum.qut.edu.au/
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