Matthew Rimmer's Blog, page 5

July 18, 2019

Patent Law and Scientific Information

QUT Faculty of Law Intellectual Property and Innovation Law Research Program

Tuesday, 9 July 2019

2:00 pm to 5:00pm

Z1064, The Gibson Room,

QUT Gardens Point Campus

OVERVIEW

This half-day research workshop considers the role of patent law in respect of scientific information.

A number of recent Australian law reform and public policy inquiries have highlighted the need for evidence-based policy-making in respect of patent law. The Australian Law Reform Commission made a number of recommendations in respect of patent law and biotechnology. The Productivity Commission has argued that there is a need for a rebalancing of Australia’s patent system, declaring that ‘it is clear that the system is poorly targeted and in many cases provides excessively strong patent rights.’ The Harper Review has highlighted the inter-relationship between patent law and competition policy.

Intellectual Property Offices have also sought to engage in data analysis. For its part, IP Australia has established the Office of the Chief Economist. The Office has sought to provide decision-makers with evidence-based advice to maximise the economic benefits of the Australian intellectual property system. The World Intellectual Property Organization has undertaken empirical research into patent landscapes in respect of breakthrough technologies — such as artificial intelligence, robotics, 3D printing, and nanotechnology.

This research workshop provides a forum for experts in patent law, policy, and practice to share their empirical research. It is designed to provide for a discussion of qualitative and quantitative research in respect of patent information. This research workshop will consider the historical value of patent information. It will explore the information function of patent law — as well as the role of patent law in respect of commercialisation and innovation. This event will also feature a discussion of patent landscapes in a range of scientific and technology fields — including information technology, 3D printing, medicine, biotechnology, genetic resources, and bioinformatics.

The keynote speaker is Professor Eva Hemmungs Wirten from Linköping University who is undertaking a five year European Research Council project on ‘Patents as Scientific Information, 1895–2020’. The event is hosted by the QUT Intellectual Property and Innovation Law Research Program. It is supported by an ARC Discovery Project on ‘Inventing the Future: Intellectual Property and 3D Printing’.

Section 1 Patent Law and Scientific Information

Patents as Scientific Information, 1895–2020

Professor Eva Hemmungs Wirten, the Department of Social Change and Culture, Linköping University

https://medium.com/media/24ec1c73a99702f2c6fb2318ecf17aff/href

Abstract

“Patents as Scientific Information, 1895–2020” (PASSIM), is a multidisciplinary, five-year project (2017–2022) funded by an ERC Advanced Investigator Grant to Professor Eva Hemmungs Wirtén, Linköping University, Sweden. At the seminar, Professor Hemmungs Wirtén will present the project, talk about its various sub-projects and activities, give insights into the ERC grants scheme and application process, and discuss ideas for future research and collaborations.

Biography

Eva Hemmungs Wirtén is Professor of Mediated Culture at the Department of Social Change and Culture, Linköping University, Sweden, and also Co-Director of The International Society for the History and Theory of Intellectual Property (ISHTIP). She has written extensively on the cultural history of international copyright, the public domain and, more recently, on patents as documents. Her most recent book, Making Marie Curie: Intellectual Property and Celebrity Culture in an Age of Information was published by University of Chicago Press in 2015. In 2017, she was awarded an ERC Advanced Investigator Grant for the project “Patents as Scientific Information, 1895–2020,” (PASSIM www.passim.se), which runs between 2017–2022. Her first article in the PASSIM-project, “How Patents Became Documents, or Dreaming of Technoscientific Order, 1895–1937,” was published by Journal of Documentation in an early cite version in March 2019 and can be downloaded as OA via https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-11-2018-0193.

The Patent Dance: Biosimilars and the (Optional) Exchange of Information

Professor Jay Sanderson and Teddy Henriksen, the University of the Sunshine Coast

https://medium.com/media/1e6a0c33d67b6a644fe6035a64b54b6d/href

Abstract

With the rise of biosimilars and biosimilar litigation (particularly in the United States) this paper is part of a larger project examining biosimilars and intellectual property law. While there are questions around novelty, inventive step and sufficiency there are also broader issues around the exchange of information, and the role of patent law in the regulation and incentivisation of new pharmaceuticals. For example, the United States’ Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act, establishes a framework (known as the “patent dance”) for the exchange of patent and related information between the biosimilar applicant and the reference product sponsor. This paper will critically consider some recent litigation on the so-called ‘patent dance’ and begin to compare the approaches taken by the United States, the European Union and Australia.

Biography

Professor Jay Sanderson is an interdisciplinary researcher who holds degrees in law, psychology and science. From plant breeding and biodiversity to genetic engineering, much of Jay’s research examines the relations between science, law and people, particularly in the area of intellectual property. Read more about Jay at https://www.usc.edu.au/staff-repository/professor-jay-sanderson

Teddy Henriksen is a PhD candidate with the USC Law School with degrees in law and pharmacy. His research is concerned with the interface between pharmaceutical drug development and the law, particularly legal issues around biologic drug molecules and biosimilars.

Mapping the Global Influence of Published Research on Industry and Innovation

Professor Uwe Dulleck, QUT Business School

https://medium.com/media/bf9ca6e58840564ce9b7b4c76c65367e/href

Abstract

Public research is critical to the economy and society. However, tangible economic and social impact only occurs when research outputs are combined, used and reused with other elements and capabilities, to deliver a product, practice, or service. Assessing the context and influence of scholarship during the dynamic process of innovation rather than measuring ex post impact, may improve performance. With this aim, we integrated and interconnected scholarly citations with global patent literature, and here we offer new tools enabling diverse stakeholders to freely evaluate the influence published research has on the generation and potential use of inventions as reflected by the patent system. We outline an evolving toolkit, Lens Influence Mapping, that allows assessment of individual scholarly works and aggregated outputs of authors for influence on industry and enterprise as measured by citations within patents. This performance measure, applied at many levels and normalized by either research disciplines or technology fields of use, may expose and highlight institutional strength and practices, and guide their future partnerships

Biography

Uwe obtained his PhD at Humboldt University Berlin in 1999. Before Uwe joined QUT he was a Professor of Economics at the University of Linz, Austria and an Assistant Professor at the University of Vienna. His publications can be found in the ‘American Economic Review’, ‘Journal of Economic Literature’, the ‘Economic Journal’, the ‘Journal of Public Economics’, the ‘International Journal of Industrial Organization’, the ‘Scandinavian Journal of Economics’, among others. His research has been discussed in the Economic Focus of ‘The Economist’, the Sydney Morning Heralkd and the ‘Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung’ (the Sunday edition of Germany’s leading quality newspaper), among others. Uwe was awarded several ARC Linkage Grants and one ARC Discovery Grant. He is a co-investigator of two Austrian Research grants. In total his research funding exceeds AUD 2,500,000). In 2015 Uwe was the Chairman of the Programme Committee for Australia’s Conference of Economists, the leading and largest conference for research and applied economists in Australia. He is an active public speaker on Behavioural Economics and its applications to Public Policy, Business Decision Making and Regulation.

Patent Law and Marine Genetic Resources

Dr Frances Humphries, Griffith Law School

https://medium.com/media/207d9c7a3ac9d9b76e3ccb6f18a24751/href

Abstract

The United Nations is currently negotiating an oceans treaty that is reigniting debate about access to marine genetic resources and the scientific information they unlock. The treaty will be an implementing agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ). Two of the treaty elements are the management or use of marine genetic resources and capacity building/technology transfer. The treaty options for the second negotiating session in March 2019 touched on intellectual property but it will be the third negotiating session in August 2019 when the real debate will begin about whether the new treaty should affect the status quo of international intellectual property minimum standards of protection. Options on the table include compulsory disclosure of origin of ABNJ genetic resources in patent applications.

While countries cannot make sovereign claims over biological resources located in ABNJ, patents over genetic resource inventions generate private interests that may control the resources’ use by others. Current technology transfer obligations under UNCLOS are subject to having ‘due regard to all legitimate interests’, which remains undefined. This raises an important question for the new treaty about how to determine and balance ‘legitimate interests’. This paper investigates the challenges and potential solutions for balancing the public interest in freely sharing scientific information with the interests of patent holders of ABNJ genetic resource inventions. It concludes that there may be a middle ground between divergent countries’ views on intellectual property under the new treaty.

Biography

Fran is a Senior Research Fellow and the Program Leader of the Law and Nature Research Program at the Law Futures Centre, specialising in genetic resource law and aquaculture. She is on the International Council of Environmental Law’s delegation for the United Nations negotiations of an Internationally Legally Binding Instrument under UNCLOS on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction.

Session 2 Patent Law and Biotechnology

A Cartography of the 3D Printing Patent Landscape

Professor Matthew Rimmer, QUT Faculty of Law

https://medium.com/media/1e82ad5fcbe2ab678c2c2a51003cf64a/href

Abstract

As part of an ARC Discovery Project on Intellectual Property and 3D Printing, Rimmer and his team of researchers have been mapping the 3D Printing landscape in respect of intellectual property.

This research project has mapped the existing empirical research in respect of intellectual property and 3D printing. The research project has also reviewed the empirical work of Daly (2016) and Moilanen, Daly, Lobato, and Allen (2015) looking at the use of Creative Commons licensing of 3D printing works under copyright law. It has also looked at the empirical research undertaken by Mendis et al. (2015) for the United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office. WIPO has been providing a wider array of datasets to allow for analysis of key technological fields, particularly in respect of patent law, trade mark law, and designs law. WIPO (2015) produced an important report on patent law and breakthrough technologies — including 3D printing, robotics, and 3D printing. A number of patent attorney firms have also sought to map patent activity in relation to sub-fields of 3D printing — such as metal 3D printing, bioprinting, and aviation 3D printing.

The research team has worked closely with consultants, IFI Claims Patent Services, to analyse key trends in respect of families of patents related to 3D printing. This research has involved, analysing patent information, using key terms. It has conducted a family patent landscape analysis. This has revealed top assignees and applicants, top portfolio status, family publication activity, top classes, and top countries revealed by priority country. Drawing upon such sources, this project has analysed the landscapes for industrial property in respect of 3D printing, and highlight both thickets of activity, and white spaces. This data has also highlighted trends in respect of 3D printing — particularly in key subfields such as consumer 3D printing, metal 3D printing, bioprinting, food 3D printing, and industrial 3D printing.

This project will also seek to develop a database in respect of litigation over intellectual property and 3D printing. As yet, there is only emerging skirmishes in respect of patents and 3D printing.

This research project has also supplemented such data analysis with qualitative interviews with key members of the maker community in respect of patent law and 3D printing.

This presentation will provide a preliminary account of the key findings of the empirical research for the ARC Project in respect of Intellectual Property and 3D Printing.

Biography

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. As a chief investigator of an ARC Project on intellectual property and 3D printing. Rimmer is currently working on research on intellectual property, the creative industries, and 3D printing. He is a co-editor of 3D Printing and Beyond: Intellectual Property and Regulation. He has also been researching intellectual property and trade, looking at the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, and the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, and the Trade in Services Agreement. His work is archived at QUT ePrints SSRN Abstracts Bepress Selected Works.

The Information Machine Is Broken: Life-Sciences Patents, Injury, Innovation and Social Licence

Assistant Professor Dr Bruce Baer Arnold, the University of Canberra

https://medium.com/media/5fa890eca1687d10bc4d05d39fc33f82/href

Abstract

This presentation considers patents as a key element of a global ‘information machine’ that results in fundamental social goods through the sharing of knowledge about lifeforms, diagnostics and therapeutics.

The machine encompasses peer-reviewed validation and dissemination of research, community understanding of life-science issues and responses by regulators or under tort law to harms attributable to patent-protected inventions. The machine is broken, given acceptance of fake health news, regulatory incapacity, dysfunction in scholarly publishing, weak implementation of the Doha exceptions and egregious rent-seeking exemplified by patent holders such as Martin Shkreli.

Fixing the machine and thereby fostering goods on a global basis requires us to review the social licence that underpins patent law. We both can and should shape rent seeking, alongside mandatory data sharing about harms, revivification of gatekeepers such as the FDA and TGA, and forward-looking incentive by bodies such as the ARC and NHMRC for open publishing.

Biography

Dr Bruce Baer Arnold is an Assistant Professor in the School of Law at the University of Canberra. He has a strong interest in privacy, data protection, intellectual property and health sector regulation. He is on the editorial board of Privacy Law Bulletin and an OECD Health Information Infrastructure panellist. His work has appeared in Melbourne University Law Review, Journal of Medical Ethics, International Journal of Communication Law & Policy, Local Government Law Journal, Alternative Law Journal and other publications.

Bio-rights, Wetware and Bioethics — Intellectual Property in the Bioinformational Age

Tess Watson, the University of Canberra

https://medium.com/media/e0502f0af991411bc8998b86ad134a4a/href

Abstract

The development of high-throughput genomic sequencing and the rise of public and commercial biobanks has raised legal, policy and bioethical questions about the ownership and control of bio-informational data. Bio-rights activists and theorists have focused on gene patent acquisition and enforcement, and the equity of commercialisation of intellectual property rights for use of technologies still rooted to the physical — tissue samples, blood products, genes and genomic profiles. However, increasingly personhood is no longer physical, in an age of big-data it is manifested in “living databases”, co-created biodata, socially-networked, and digital persons who can be commercialised and commodified in a myriad of ways.

While the autonomy, privacy and control concerns of construing people as walking databases has been considered, this presentation will examine the intellectual property implications. Thus, copyright may offer protections for researchers when patents are not available, both in the outputs of genomic sequencing (the trace outputs and associated texts) and the associated databases. As co-creators, they may also offer participants co-contribution and moral rights, recognising their ownership of their epigenetic, lifestyle and genomic profiles.

Biography

Tess Watson is a Juris Doctor student at the University of Canberra with a previous degree in English Literature and Psychology, who has previously worked in Disability, Aged Care and Family Law public policy. Her thesis focuses on autonomy, privacy, control and ownership of property in the body in bioinformatics and emerging technologies.

From the Population to the Personal: The Ethics of Market-driven Medical Innovation Regulation

Associate Professor Wendy Bonython, Bond University

https://medium.com/media/2ee9e568748020512d96d42018e2047d/href

Abstract:

Innovation in medicine typically relies on large scale population or epidemiological data for validation. Patent law, with its incentivisation of innovation through protection of access to markets, similarly privileges large populations, in the context of potential markets.

This presentation examines the application of population-scale legal frameworks, such as IP law, to problems that are highly individualistic in nature. It specifically focuses on structural barriers to developing therapies for rare diseases, or rare complications arising from common therapies, where potential market scale is limited. It explores mechanisms designed to liberalise access to therapies of relevance in responding to epidemic-scale public health issues, where potential markets may be large but arbitrarily devalued from the perspective of innovators. It considers the bioethical implications of these tensions, in particular the tension between the utilitarian and dignitarian philosophies evident in this intersection of law and medicine.

Biography:

Associate Professor Wendy Bonython (Bond University) teaches and researches in private law and medical/biotechnology law. Her current research examines the relationship between collectivised social benefits and individualised harms, in the regulation of medical innovation and healthcare. She has a PhD in Molecular Medicine in addition to her legal qualifications, and has previously worked in medical research, health administration, and health policy.

Bibliography:

Professor Eva Hemmungs Wirten, ‘Patents as Scientific Information, 1895–2020’, Patent Law and Scientific Information, QUT IP and Innovation Law Research Program, 9 July 2019, https://youtu.be/nin0btsorwM

Professor Jay Sanderson and Teddy Henriksen, ‘The Patent Dance: Biosimilars and the (Optional) Exchange of Information’, Patent Law and Scientific Information, QUT IP and Innovation Law Research Program, 9 July 2019, https://youtu.be/LJJdIEFkOgE

Professor Uwe Dulleck, ‘Mapping the Global Influence of Published Research on Industry and Innovation’, Patent Law and Scientific Information, QUT IP and Innovation Law Research Program, 9 July 2019, https://youtu.be/JrpIcsyD_RA

Dr Frances Humphries, ‘Patent Law and Marine Genetic Resources’, Patent Law and Scientific Information, QUT IP and Innovation Law Research Program, 9 July 2019, https://youtu.be/s0Vtcl3cNo0

Professor Matthew Rimmer, ‘A Cartography of the 3D Printing Patent Landscape’, Patent Law and Scientific Information, QUT IP and Innovation Law Research Program, 9 July 2019, https://youtu.be/3f0NuzhJQxc

Dr Bruce Baer Arnold, ‘The Information Machine is Broken: Life-Sciences Patents, Injury, Innovation and Social Licence’, Patent Law and Scientific Information, QUT IP and Innovation Law Research Program, 9 July 2019, https://youtu.be/_LOxXGAHdDY

Tess Watson, ‘Bio-rights, Wetware and Bioethics — Intellectual Property in the Bioinformational Age’, Patent Law and Scientific Information, QUT IP and Innovation Law Research Program, 9 July 2019, https://youtu.be/jbBs4gtZNHQ

Dr Wendy Bonython, ‘From the Population to the Personal: the Ethics of Market-driven Medical Innovation Regulation’, Patent Law and Scientific Information, QUT IP and Innovation Law Research Program, 9 July 2019, https://youtu.be/IVfuoRS8X34

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Published on July 18, 2019 21:09

Making Marie Curie: Intellectual Property and Celebrity Culture in an Age of Information

Making Marie Curie: Intellectual Property and Celebrity Culture in an Age of Information

Professor Eva Hemmungs Wirten

QUT Intellectual Property and Innovation Law Research Program

Wed, July 10, 2019
5:30 PM — 7:00 PM AEST
Location
The Gibson Room (Z1064)
QUT
Gardens Point Campus
Brisbane, Queensland 4000

Making Marie Curie: Intellectual Property and Celebrity Culture in an Age of Information

Professor Eva Hemmungs Wirten

https://medium.com/media/7d1444c45b05334c64ccc8123df2346e/href

Abstract

In many ways, Marie Curie represents modern science. Her considerable lifetime achievements — the first woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize, the only woman to be awarded the Prize in two fields, and the only person to be awarded Nobel Prizes in multiple sciences — are studied by schoolchildren across the world. When, in 2009, the New Scientist carried out a poll for the “Most Inspirational Female Scientist of All Time,” the result was a foregone conclusion: Marie Curie trounced her closest runner-up, Rosalind Franklin, winning double the number of Franklin’s votes. She is a role model to women embarking on a career in science, the pride of two nations — Poland and France — and, not least of all, a European Union brand for excellence in science.

Making Marie Curie explores what went into the creation of this icon of science. It is not a traditional biography, or one that attempts to uncover the “real” Marie Curie. Rather, Eva Hemmungs Wirtén, by tracing a career that spans two centuries and a world war, provides an innovative and historically grounded account of how modern science emerges in tandem with celebrity culture under the influence of intellectual property in a dawning age of information. She explores the emergence of the Curie persona, the information culture of the period that shaped its development, and the strategies Curie used to manage and exploit her intellectual property. How did one create and maintain for oneself the persona of scientist at the beginning of the twentieth century? What special conditions bore upon scientific women, and on married women in particular? How was French identity claimed, established, and subverted? How, and with what consequences, was a scientific reputation secured?

Biography

Eva Hemmungs Wirtén is Professor of Mediated Culture at the Department of Social Change and Culture, Linköping University, Sweden, and also Co-Director of The International Society for the History and Theory of Intellectual Property (ISHTIP). She has written extensively on the cultural history of international copyright, the public domain and, more recently, on patents as documents. Her most recent book, Making Marie Curie: Intellectual Property and Celebrity Culture in an Age of Information was published by University of Chicago Press in 2015. In 2017, she was awarded an ERC Advanced Investigator Grant for the project “Patents as Scientific Information, 1895–2020,” (PASSIM www.passim.se), which runs between 2017–2022. Her first article in the PASSIM-project, “How Patents Became Documents, or Dreaming of Technoscientific Order, 1895–1937,” was published by Journal of Documentation in an earlycite version in March 2019 and can be downloaded as OA via https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-11-2018-0193.

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Published on July 18, 2019 17:17

July 17, 2019

The Future of Trade

Presented by QUT Faculty of Law Intellectual Property and Innovation Law Research Program, QUT Institute for Future Environments, and QUT Chair in Digital Economy

Wednesday, 10 April 2019

8:30am to 5:00pm

OVERVIEW

As the World Trade Organization has observed: ‘Technology is transforming our lives and our economies — including the way we trade.’

This event will consider how digital technologies — such as electronic commerce, fintech, artificial intelligence, blockchain, 3D Printing, the Internet of Things, robotics, and advanced manufacturing — will transform world trade in the future.

This symposium explore some of the opportunities that such technologies will bring for countries, multinational companies, SMEs and citizens.

This event highlights the need for the reform and adjustment of international trade rules to better take into account such new technologies. Current international frameworks are currently ill-suited to the digital economy.

This event will also consider such public policy challenges — including e-commerce rules, financial regulation, data protection, privacy protection, cybersecurity, and intellectual property.

This forum will provide an opportunity to discuss how these developments will affect trade and multi-lateral trade system. This event will also consider the inter-relationship between trade and sustainable development in its consideration of new technologies. In particular, it will take into account larger concerns about culture, education, health-care, equality, and inclusion.

This event has been inspired by the recent work by the World Trade Organization on the future of trade — with the WTO 2030 Forum and the WTO Report on the Future of Trade.

This event has been the product of collaboration by co-teachers of international trade — looking at how the discipline will be affected by new technologies.

Session 1 — Queensland and the Future of Trade (9:00 am — 9:30 am)

Chair — Anne Matthew, QUT

Government perspective on how technology is transforming our lives and our economies — including the way we trade

Mr Paul Martyn, Chief Executive Officer, Trade and Investment Queensland

https://medium.com/media/2cb9111a036d33ddea54d69b445b3848/href

Abstract

Technology is transforming the economy and global trade at a rapid pace. This change presents government, and the constituents they represent, with both opportunities and challenges — opportunities in the form of increased productivity, economic growth and employment in new industries, and challenges such as the changing nature of work, increased competition, and the general disruption of the status-quo. Paul will discuss government’s role in helping the industry and the broader community to embrace technology and innovation and promoting Queensland made technology to the world. Using case study examples, Paul will highlight how technology enables companies to go global, meet new and emerging market trends and attract global investment.

Biography

Paul Martyn leads Trade and Investment Queensland, the Queensland Government’s dedicated global business agency. Paul works with more than 220 staff worldwide to help Queensland firms achieve export success and to encourage global investment in Queensland projects. With 15 offices around the world, TIQ has one of the largest global networks of any Australian government agency.

Paul has over 20 years’ experience in economic development, working with industries, firms and regions to successfully grow and compete in a global context. He has held senior roles in policy development, regulatory reform, commercial analysis, investment facilitation and program delivery.

Paul has worked to encourage growth and investment in a wide range of Queensland’s key sectors, including resources and energy, agriculture, manufacturing, tourism, defence industries and high technology.

Prior to joining TIQ, Paul led the implementation of the Queensland Government’s flagship $650 million Advance Queensland (AQ) agenda, working to promote innovation-led economic growth. AQ has been widely acknowledged as the leading state-based innovation initiative, with Queensland overtaking Victoria in numbers of start-ups, and securing global R&D investment in platform technologies.

Paul undertook his Master’s Degree in Science at the University of London on a British Chevening Scholarship, and holds honours degrees in both law and government from the University of Queensland. He was a lawyer in private practice before joining the Queensland Government.

Session 2 — E-Commerce and Digital Trade (9:30 am — 10:30 am)

Chair — Anne Matthew, QUT

The Future of Trade: The Limitations of Australia’s Current Trade Policy Approach, and Recommendations for a New Trade Agenda

Associate Professor Elizabeth Thurbon, UNSW

https://medium.com/media/bec0db73137181d2533a8e8d3196cfe3/href

Abstract

In its 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper, the Australian Government identified trade agreements as a key tool to advance its foreign policy objectives: from defending the rules-based order against protectionism to ensuring that emerging economies abide by liberal economic principles, to advancing the interests of Australian firms globally. So how well do the trade rules — which Australia is promoting — help advance these objectives? This presentation considers whether Australia’s current trade policy approach is more likely to help or hinder its foreign policy goals, and proposes an alternative approach to trade policy that is more in keeping with the government’s stated economic and political objectives.

Biography

Associate Professor Elizabeth Thurbon is a Scientia Fellow and Deputy Head of School (Research) in the School of Social Sciences at UNSW Sydney. She has also held visiting fellowships at Seoul National University and China Foreign Affairs University.

Elizabeth’s research expertise is the (international) political-economy of trade, finance and techno-industrial transformation, with a focus on the developmental role of the state in East Asia and Australia. Her most recent book Developmental Mindset: The Revival of Financial Activism in South Korea was published by Cornell University Press in 2016.

Elizabeth is a regular contributor to public and policy debates on Australian trade and industry policy. She is the co-author of two popular books on Australian trade policy and economic security (with Linda Weiss and John Mathews), and Guest Editor of the 2015 Special Issue of the Australian Journal of International Affairs dedicated to evaluating the Future of Australian Trade Policy in light of the 10-year anniversary of the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA).

She is currently a Chief Investigator on two large, externally-funded research projects: A 3-year collaborative ARC Discovery Project examining the role of the state in East Asia’s Clean Energy Shift, and implications for Australia (alongside CIs Dr Sung-Young Kim, Prof John Mathews, and A/Prof Hao Tan), and a project examining the Evolution of Financial Activism in East Asia, as part of a 5-year Academy of Korean Studies-funded Laboratory Project based at Seoul National University (alongside CIs Profs Keun Lee, Djun-kil Kim, Jang-sup Shin, Jaeyong Song, and Chan-yuan Wong).

She holds a Ph.D. in International Political Economy from the University of Sydney. She also completed her Economics (Social Sciences) Degree at Sydney University, where she was awarded first class Honours and the University Medal for Academic Excellence.

The Future of Australia’s Digital Trade: Trends and Measurement Issues

Dr Md Shahiduzzaman, Research Fellow, QUT Chair in Digital Economy

https://medium.com/media/88aa21cd2cd352c0bfe650e24397e08a/href

Abstract

In October 2017, digital technology company Clipchamp received the Premier of Queensland’s Export Award. Clipchamp provides a patent-protected in-browser video-production technology stack, which has been sold to international brands, such as Snapchat, McDonald’s, Nike, ESPN, New York Times, the Royal Household, Google, Volvo and many more. With more than 4.3 million registered users, 95% of Clipchamp customers are coming from outside Australia. While we celebrate digital exporters, little information on digital trade currently exists, and we fail at measuring the trade volumes accurately. It is expected that by 2025 Australia’s trade value chain will be mostly digital. How do we capture the values of digital trade? What are Australia’s present trends and future prospects of digital exports? These questions have significant implications to policy, such as market access, trade facilitation and skills development. In this study, we review the measurement and patterns of Australia’s digital trade, information gaps and their implications to the policy.

Biography

Dr Md Shahiduzzaman is a productivity analyst and researcher in digital economy at the Chair in Digital Economy, Queensland University of Technology (QUT). He has been actively researching on the impacts of technology to economy, industries and fast-growth small-to-medium enterprises for long. Dr Shahid has published +50 papers in the areas of economic growth, productivity and digital economy — many of these published in leading international journals such as International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Telecommunications Policy, Economic Analysis and Policy, Economic Change and Restructuring, Journal of Rural Studies, Energy Economics, Global Environmental Change and so forth.

Shahid’s work has also been published in the Conversation and Australian Financial Review and industry reports. He has led national and international research

Session 3 — Blockchain (11:00 am — 12:00 pm)

Chair — Professor Rosalind Mason, QUT

Blockchain and the Future of Trade

Dr Darcy Allen, RMIT

https://medium.com/media/b562b6f68850983d5e2d7172c12193b8/href

Abstract

Darcy Allen will explore the future of trade and global trading patterns through the lens of trade as an information problem. As they travel between producers, intermediate suppliers and consumers goods carry with them information attributes such as provenance and quality. Other information is necessary for regulatory, tax and tariff compliance. Additional information is produced regarding the stewardship of goods– how well they have been looked after in transit — and how those goods are transformed. Blockchains and other distributed ledger technologies are uniquely suited to trace, secure, and update the attributes of goods as they travel across supply chains — vastly increasing the amount of trusted information that is added into global trading networks. By viewing trade as an information problem, we can forecast some consequences for the future of trade in a world of blockchain economy. The presentation will draw implications both for the future of global trade and public policy.

Biography

Dr Darcy Allen is an institutional economist and writer focused on the economics and political economy of new technologies. Dr Allen is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the RMIT Blockchain Innovation Hub in Melbourne. He writes both in academia and throughout the electronic and print media on topics including the economics of technology and the relationship between regulation and entrepreneurship. Dr Allen is also an Academic Fellow at the Worldwide Blockchain Innovation Association and an Academic Affiliate of the University College London Centre for Blockchain Technologies. He has appeared many times as an expert witness before parliamentary inquiries, been cited in reports tabled in state and federal parliaments, and sits on the editorial boards of several blockchain journals. His PhD thesis in economics was passed outright in 2017 and won the RMIT university-wide prize for research excellence.

Transparency in Animal Welfare and Food Fraud: The Benefits and Challenges of Blockchain for Trade

Dr Felicity Deane, QUT

https://medium.com/media/004b28d60dbe9c49eb221a88c70a296a/href

Abstract

The high consumer demand for good quality food has arguably led to the prevalence of a number of problems across the supply chain. One significant issue is the prevalence of food fraud. Food Fraud is an intentional act made for economic gain. In addition to deliberate acts of adulteration, fraud would include the circumstances where producers or other related entities make unsubstantiated product quality claims. Food fraud is a prevalent problem, however when we consider this issue in regards to animal material it also intersects with animal welfare concerns. This paper will consider how transparency can potentially address concerns associated with both fraud and animal welfare, and will include a discussion of where these two social costs intersect. In this regard, adhering to improved and dedicated principles of transparency in the regulation of the welfare of animals in agriculture may, in some instances, result in additional benefits for supply chain integrity and sustainability. In addressing the governance of animal welfare, within this paper we suggest that the substantive obligations, associated with regulated standards should be viewed separately to the procedural elements required to achieve these substantive obligations and standards. Although we argue that both the substantive obligations and the procedural aspects of regulations require transparency, it is the latter which presents the greatest need and challenge in terms of animal welfare obligations and the challenges that are experienced by industry participants cannot and should not be ignored. Therefore, in response to these challenges we consider whether technology, in particular blockchain applications, can disrupt the current state of trade and improve transparency in livestock production and the animal material supply chains.

Biography

Dr Felicity Deane is a Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Law, Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Brisbane, Australia. Felicity completed a Bachelor of Law and a Bachelor of Commerce at the University of Queensland in 1999. Immediately following graduation Felicity commenced work and study in the United States in the disciplines of accounting and law. She commenced PhD studies in December 2009 at Queensland University of Technology. Her PhD entitled, ‘The Clean Energy Package and WTO Law: An Analysis of Compliance Issues’ was subsequently completed in August 2013. In January 2014 Felicity commenced her time as a lecturer within the QUT law school on the early career academic program. She has published several articles on the topic of emissions trading, market based mechanisms and the WTO Law. Her book ‘Emissions Trading and WTO Law: A Global Analysis’ was published in March 2015. She has published extensively in areas where economics and the law intersect, in particular regarding emissions trading and other forms of market based mechanisms. Most recently she led a multidisciplinary project which analysed the Regulation of Sugarcane farming practices in Queensland, and has particularly reviewed the option of using a cap and trade model for this regulation. Felicity’s most recent research interest is in the area of Blockchain technology and its use to promote sustainable agricultural practices and food security.

Session 4–3D Printing (12:00 pm -1:00 pm)

Chair — Dr Felicity Deane , QUT

ClearCorrect: Intellectual Property, 3D Printing and the Future of Trade

Professor Matthew Rimmer, QUT

https://medium.com/media/a14cde56e0e2362bf285d70e72c9525b/href

Abstract

Building upon our recent publication, 3D Printing and Beyond, this paper considers the relationship between intellectual property and trade in the context of 3D printing. This work contends that 3D printing has not only disrupted the discipline of intellectual property, but it has also provided profound challenges for the regulation of trade and globalisation. Part 1 provides a case study of the patent dispute between ClearCorrect and Align Technology as a case study. The ruling of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit will have larger ramifications in respect of the jurisdiction of the International Trade Commission in respect of the digital economy. It considers subsequent patent disputes between the parties before the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Part 2 considers how 3D printing will be affected by the international trade dispute between the United States and China over intellectual property, innovation policy, and advanced manufacturing. It examines whether 3D printing will reverse the pattern of offshoring in the United States. It notes the collateral impact of tariffs upon 3D printing. It also considers the adoption of 3D printing in China, and the issues that may raise in terms of intellectual property ownership, intellectual property infringement, and intellectual property licensing. Part 3 considers larger contextual issues raised by the World Intellectual Property, the World Trade Organization, and the World Economic Forum in respect of intellectual property, trade, and 3D printing. It examines some of the different scenarios in relation to the impact of 3D printing on the future of trade.

Biography

3D Printing Hope: How MSF’s Initiative Reveals the Potential of Additive Manufacturing for the Future of Sustainable Development

Samuel de Souza Teixeira Lobão, Masters by Research Candidate, QUT

https://medium.com/media/7e57270d8c1c786e0d6dfcadb8f4ec6d/href

Abstract

In 2016, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals came into effect as a blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future. Grouped in 17 clusters, they aim to address some of the main challenges faced by humanity by the year 2030. With the philosophical idea of leaving no one behind, the 17 goals interconnect to tackle issues such as poverty, inequality, health and environment.

One of the main challenges faced during the implementation of SDGs is the cost and logistics of getting products and infrastructure to remote and areas with difficult access. By deconstructing the traditional chain of consumption, 3D-Printing brings production and consumers closer than ever before. For its revolutionary characteristics, this technology has the potential of redefining accessibility for underdeveloped areas where the shortage of goods was chronic.

Conducive to this idea, last year the Médecins Sans Frontières Organization announced in-field tests for 3D-Printing and correlated technologies. A field hospital in Amman/Jordan, aiming to provide cheap and customised prosthetic limbs for patients recovering from traumatic injuries in conflict zones. Although experimental, the project has successfully fitted more than 20 limbs to patients from Gaza, Iraq, Syria and Yemen. While new technologies and development are always linked together, not often they deliver the promised breakthrough results. The MSF initiative is a shred of indisputable evidence that 3D-Printing is more than a vague promise, being capable of delivering concrete results to the future of sustainable development.

Biography

Samuel de Souza Teixeira Lobao, Attorney in Law (Brazil), L.L.B (Hons) by PUC-MG (Brazil), L.L.M in Intellectual Property (World Intellectual Property Organization — QUT), and M.Phil Candidate in Intellectual Property and Innovation (QUT). While being a complete geek for all kind of technology, Mr Samuel Lobao has a passion for social sciences and law studies. Acknowledging the difficulty of the task, he dedicates his time to understand the constant transformative impacts caused by technological advances in areas such as Cultural Heritage, Intellectual Property, Commerce and Innovation Law. His current work at QUT seeks to understand how 3D-Printing technologies could have a protagonist role in the future of sustainable development.

Session 5 — (2:00 pm — 3:00 pm)

Chair — Professor Rosalind Mason, QUT

Regulating Work and Contracts in a Transnational Sharing Economy

Professor Andrew Stewart, University of Adelaide

https://medium.com/media/ba38b6c10c04126a430d8ef3fa164de4/href

Abstract

The growth of the sharing economy has prompted debate around the world about whether those obtaining ‘gig’ work through digital labour platforms such as Uber, Deliveroo, Airtasker or Freelancer should be regarded as either employees or ‘independent workers’, for the purpose of minimum wage laws or other labour standards. It is also possible that general laws on the fairness of contractual terms may be used to challenge the inclusion of harsh or one-sided provisions in the contracts of adhesion (take-it-or-leave-it contracts) typically drafted and imposed by digital platforms. This presentation will look at the state of play on these issues, both in Australia and other countries. It will also explore some of the ways in which international or transnational regulation might develop in this field.

Biography

Andrew Stewart is the John Bray Professor of Law at the University of Adelaide and a Legal Consultant to the law firm Piper Alderman. An expert in employment law and workplace relations, contract law and intellectual property, his recent books include new editions of Stewart’s Guide to Employment Law, Creighton & Stewart’s Labour Law and Intellectual Property in Australia, together with Cooperation at Work (with Mark Bray and Johanna Macneil) and The Wages Crisis in Australia (co-edited with Jim Stanford and Tess Hardy). A new text, Contract Law: Principles and Context, co-authored with Warren Swain and Karen Fairweather, will be published by Cambridge University Press in June 2019. His current research includes Australian Research Council-funded projects on the regulation of unpaid work experience and the organisation of work through digital platforms.

To Intervene or Not To Intervene in the Sharing Economy

Associate Professor Renuka Mahadevan, the University of Queensland

https://medium.com/media/aca63af0483add2c374aa2a4579fbf8d/href

Abstract

The emergence of the sharing economy has significantly transformed the way in which some services are provided. This has brought about challenges for traditional industries such as those in the hospitality and transportation sector due to Airbnb and Uber respectively. In this context, is there a role for the government to provide a level playing field or should the market be allowed to operate freely? This presentation will shed light on how, why and when intervention may or may be called for in Australia and other countries.

Biography

Associate Professor Renuka Mahadevan is an applied economist who works on the Asia Pacific region in areas that include trade, international and development economics, hospitality and tourism. She has written more than 90 journal articles and co-authored five books. She has led international research projects and her multidisciplinary work has been recognised in international media and reports. She is the recipient of the international Understanding China Fellowship in 2018 and has strong research collaboration in China.

Session 6 — Culture (3:30 pm — 4:15 pm)

Chair — Professor Matthew Rimmer, QUT

Artificial Intelligence and Trade — The Human Problem

Dr Michael Guihot, QUT

https://medium.com/media/bd78612c62260c53da596b9cd46bbd79/href

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) will continue to change the way we live — the technology revolution has only just begun. Fuelled by exponential increases in computer power, data storage and interrogation capability, machines can now tirelessly outperform humans on many tasks. When AI is targeted at particular tasks, its processing and predictive power often surprises and confounds us. This evolving reliance on machines threatens to transform not only our private and social lives, but also our political and economic subsistence. For example, early uses of AI in financial services have exposed human components of trade as friction points that can be eliminated. Financial trading services are now more often than not conducted by computers that can interrogate market data and make immediate trades in fractions of a second. In 2017, JP Morgan estimated that traditional human traders made up only around 10% of trading volume.

The new institutional economists in the latter half of the twentieth century sought to reduce transaction costs such as search and information costs, and the costs incurred in policing and enforcement of transactions. AI promises to reduce or eliminate many of these costs. In fact machine learning — artificial intelligence’s brute squad — appears made to star in financial trading. Machines using AI can constantly scan troves of not only market data, but market ‘sentiment’ from news and trade articles, blogs and social media posts to aid in its predictions of market fluctuations to garner information to inform its transaction decisions. At the same time, it learns and improves.

But financial trading is only one example of the transformative nature of AI on trade. AI promises to impact every element: data analytics is used to predict demand and respond immediately using machine to machine communication, real time and cheap translation services remove friction in understanding and communicating between foreign counterparties, warehouses use robots to store and retrieve products on demand, smart contracts threaten to eliminate performance and enforcement issues in contracts and to eliminate ancient means of transacting such as bills of lading, and autonomous shipping and transport threatens to remove human involvement in the physical act of transferring property. Amazon’s Dash buttons are a perfect example of this frictionless trading future.

Vehicles on our roads will become autonomous through five levels. We are currently between levels 2 and 3 at which computers are beginning to monitor the road environment and control the vehicle as it interacts with other vehicles. Level five of this process represents complete vehicle autonomy. At this level humans, whose irrationality and unpredictability is the cause of accidents on roads, will be precluded from interacting with the autonomous functioning of the system. By eliminating humans in this way, roads will become safer and more efficient. Similarly, by eliminating the human element in trade, processes will become more fluent, the friction of transaction costs will dissolve and trade will become more efficient.

Biography

Dr Michael Guihot teaches the new unit, Artificial Intelligence, Robots and the Law at QUT and is currently co-authoring a book by that name. He also runs a reading group on Technology, Regulation and Society that investigates the interaction of technology on society and the regulatory implications of this interaction. He is the Deputy Chair of the Australian branch of the Society on Social Implications of Technology, a sub-group of the IEEE. His 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. His current research investigates how changes in global power structures affect private and public governance, and the impact of new technology on legal institutions. He has published in international journals on the regulation of artificial intelligence, and also published on manufacturer’s liability under the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth).

Inauthentic Aboriginal ‘Style’ Art and Craft Products: How can the Law Protect Cultural Expression from Exploitation?

Stephanie Parkin, Masters by Research Candidate, QUT

https://medium.com/media/5f0a380176f99b7cebae4fabd305520e/href

Abstract

This presentation will outline research that considers the presence of inauthentic Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art and craft products in the souvenir market (Inauthentic Art and Craft). It analyses the causes and impacts of Inauthentic Art and Craft and proposes a regulatory model to address the issue. The research builds upon work carried out over many years by artists and members of the arts and legal industries, in addition to material sourced from the ‘Fake Art Harms Culture’ campaign. This project is being conducted in parallel with the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Indigenous Affairs Parliamentary Inquiry into the same issue (Inquiry), and is informed by submissions filed with the Inquiry by Aboriginal artists and members of the public. This research is significant because it will address the impacts, propose solutions and contribute to the ongoing recognition of Aboriginal cultural expression in Australia. From a legal perspective, the research will challenge interpretations of a ‘representation’ under consumer law in the context of cultural expression. Ultimately, the research aims to improve legal and social recognition in Australia of Aboriginal cultural expression — the foundation of this country’s national identity.

Biography:

Stephanie is from the Quandamooka People of North Stradbroke Island and has a background practicising in intellectual property law. Stephanie is currently completing a Masters of Philosophy focusing on the manufacture and sale of inauthentic or fake Aboriginal ‘style’ art and craft products in the souvenir market. Stephanie is also on the board of directors for the Indigenous Art Code.

Session 7 — Health (4:15 pm — 5:00 pm)

Chair — Stephanie Parkin, QUT

The Evidentiary Value of the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in Defending Tobacco Plain Packaging Measures in the WTO Disputes

Sanath Sameera Wijesinghe, Phd Candidate, QUT

https://medium.com/media/2c10cc0a99138296a79cac1b22b2f77c/href

Abstract

This paper evaluates the evidentiary value of the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) in defending plain packaging measures under WTO law which eventually sheds light on accommodating the notions of global health and sustainable development in the domain of international trade with particular reference to the Australia-Tobacco Plain Packaging decision. The WHO FCTC creates legally binding obligations on its Parties to adopt systematic, effective and innovative tobacco control measures such as tobacco plain packaging. However, the tobacco companies use WTO agreements to challenge the adoption of such stringent tobacco control measures under the WTO Dispute Settlement mechanism. With these challenges the role of WHO FCTC has been shifted from enabler to a defender of tobacco control measures which gives legal weight to Governments’ arguments on adopting tobacco plain packaging measures. The WHO FCTC has appeared as a strong defence in the Australia-Tobacco Palin Packaging case which strengthening Australia’s arguments as a binding legal instrument and technical and scientific authority. In this backdrop, the WHO FCTC sheds light on accommodating the notions of global health and sustainable development in the domain of international trade and motivates other WHO FCTC parties to adopt tobacco plain packaging measures.

First, this paper investigates the challenges which tobacco trade brings for global health and how is WHO FCTC stimulate its Parties to adopt tobacco control measures to mitigate the impact of such challenges. Second, it examines to what extent WHO FCTC invokes as a defence in the Australia- Tobacco Plain Packaging case in strengthening Australia’s arguments. Third, it discusses the tobacco industry challenges on the defensive role of WHO FCTC and counter-arguments which acknowledged the evidentiary value of the WHO FCTC as a binding legal instrument and technical and scientific authority to justify the adoption of tobacco plain packaging measures. Finally, it analyses the impact of the application of the WHO FCTC as an evidentiary source in the WTO disputes which sheds light on accommodating the notions of global health and sustainable development in the domain of international trade.

Biography

Sanath Sameera Wijesinghe, is a lecturer in law at the Department of Legal Studies of the Open University of Sri Lanka. He currently engages in his PhD research at School of Law, Queensland University of Technology. His area of PhD research is plain packaging of tobacco products in the South Asian region. He teaches intellectual property law, constitutional law, land law, business law and jurisprudence in the Open University of Sri Lanka and some other Sri Lankan State universities.

He has written several publications including peer-reviewed journal articles on protection of geographical indications, tobacco control and intellectual property rights, collective management of copyrights and related rights and some aspects on international humanitarian law.

Community-Based Patent Opposition Model in India: Access to Medicines, Right to Health and Sustainable Development

Muhammad Zaheer Abbas, Phd Candidate, QUT

https://medium.com/media/cf7b8ccca2ae03b1c87288d5a55f440d/href

Abstract

Implementation of the 2030 Sustainability Agenda’s health-related goals requires both robust development and equitable dissemination of innovative health technologies, especially medicines. Keeping in view India’s critical role in the global access to medicines as a leading supplier of cheaper generic medicines, this study considers to what extent India’s patent opposition model achieves its well-defined goals of (a) improving access to essential drugs and (b) protecting a well-established generic drug manufacturing industry in India. In 2005, India adopted distinctively higher substantive patentability standards and linked these bold provisions with the patent opposition procedure to provide an opportunity to third parties to challenge the validity of patents in a time- and cost-effective manner. This study undertakes an in-depth analysis of both the legitimacy and practical viability of this nexus between India’s patent opposition and higher threshold standards for patentability and considers whether this approach improves access to drugs for people who need them.

Using an empirical analysis of 249 patent opposition cases in India, this research evaluates the effectiveness of the Indian patent opposition model. Empirical analysis of patent oppositions in India suggests that the Indian patent opposition model, despite all its merits, has not been used to its full potential. The rate of pre-grant opposition in India from 2005–2015 is low at 2.33%. The Indian opposition model is less likely to enable India to achieve its desired health-related SDGs if used at the current rate. More importantly, the data shows that mainly corporations have used India’s patent opposition mechanism; participation of civil society organizations has been only in exceptional cases (6.4% cases). Lack of participation of the community representatives is a serious concern because corporations are not defenders of the public interest and their decisions to oppose patents are motivated by commercial interests.

This study argues that there is a need to reform the patent opposition system in India in order to enhance community involvement. Learning from Sachs’ enlightened globalization that addresses the needs of the poorest of the poor, India needs to adopt a community-based opposition model which empowers communities to participate in the patent system as representatives of the poorest of the poor. Civil society organizations should be procedurally enabled to not only challenge patent validity on technical grounds but also raise larger public policy issues in terms of access to medicines, public health and sustainable development. Community organizations represent the values advocated by this study. They should be provided an affordable and practically feasible mechanism to bring in these values to administrative hearings.

Though the main focus of this research is on India’s patent opposition model, it also considers use of other patent flexibilities. Despite being a leading developing country, India has not been able to utilize legitimate patent flexibilities like compulsory licensing because of potential negative consequences. This study recommends adoption of compulsory licensing provisions to be primarily used as a meaningful threat or policy leverage to negotiate lower drug prices. But these provisions cannot serve the purpose of a credible threat if they are never invoked to actually issue compulsory licenses. This study advocates community-backed use of compulsory licensing in order to combat the pressures exerted by big players and Big Pharma. If civil society organizations stand with the government and respond to these pressures in a well-organized manner by framing the issue of access to medicines as a human rights issue, even the strongest countries and corporations will have to withdraw pressure.

Even a best use of patent flexibilities does not offer a solution to the problem of neglected tropical diseases which affect 1/6th of worlds’ population. Using Jeffrey D. Sachs’ conception of enlightened globalization and directed technological change, this research evaluates different innovation policy options for India to achieve health-related SDGs and to retain its role as the pharmacy of both the developing and the developed world. It argues that instead of relying upon one mainstream innovation model provided under patent system, India needs to adopt a need-driven open collaborative innovation model that complements the existing patent system, operates parallel to it and addresses some of its key problems. This study supports implementation of open-source drug discovery model and use of prizes, rewards and grants to incentivize directed pharmaceutical research.

Biography

Mr Muhammad Zaheer Abbas is a lecturer in law at International Islamic University, Islamabad, Pakistan. He is currently conducting his PhD research at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) as a recipient of QUT Postgraduate Research Award (QUTPRA). He studied Law at International Islamic University, Islamabad and obtained BA General and LLB (Hons) with distinction in 2010. He also obtained LLM in International Law, with distinction, from the same university in 2012.

He has nearly seven years of legal teaching and research experience at university level. He also served as Associate Editor of ‘Islamabad Law Review’, a peer reviewed open access research journal of Faculty of Shariah & Law. He has published 10 research papers, related to intellectual property protection and the public interest, in reputed peer-reviewed journals. His research publications include:

· “WTO Paragraph 6 System for Affordable Access to Medicines: Relief or Regulatory Ritualism”, Journal of World Intellectual Property, 2018;

· “Compulsory licensing and access to medicines: TRIPS amendment allows export to least-developed countries”, Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice, 2017;

· “Rationale of Compulsory Licensing of Pharmaceutical Patents in the Light of Human Rights Perspective”, Pakistan Perspectives, 2014;

· “TRIPS Flexibilities: Implementation Gaps between Theory and Practice”, Nordic Journal of Commercial Law, 2013.

In 2014, Mr 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. Mr Abbas has been an active legal academic and researcher and has published and presented regularly in his area of teaching and research interest.

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Published on July 17, 2019 23:12

April 25, 2019

World Intellectual Property Day 2019 — The Australian Story of Intellectual Property and Sport

World Intellectual Property Day 2019World Intellectual Property Day 2019 — The Australian Story of Intellectual Property and Sport

Professor Matthew Rimmer

26 April 2019 is World Intellectual Property Day. This year, the event is focusing on intellectual property and sports. The Director-General of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), Francis Gurry, has emphasized: ‘Intellectual property rights underlie and empower the financial model of all sporting events worldwide.’

https://medium.com/media/7df8cbe7e56f5e1a65204cac5e675da9/href

The WIPO elaborates upon the theme of this year’s celebrations:

‘This year’s World Intellectual Property Day campaign — Reach for Gold — takes a closer look inside the world of sports. It explores how innovation, creativity and the IP rights that encourage and protect them support the development of sport and its enjoyment around the world. The universal values sports encompass — excellence, respect and fair play — power their global appeal. Today, thanks to advances in broadcasting and communications technologies, anyone, anywhere, can follow sporting action around the clock, tracking the performances of their favorite athletes and teams without leaving home.’

WIPO emphasizes: ‘Sports have become a multi-billion dollar global industry — one that generates investment in facilities (from sports stadia to broadcasting networks), employs millions of people around the world, and entertains many more.’

The Australian Story

In this context, it is worthwhile reflecting upon Australia’s distinctive contribution to the jurisprudence on intellectual property and sport.

One of the foundational intellectual property cases in Australia concerned sport — namely, horse racing.

The High Court of Australia held in the 1937 case of Victoria Park Racing & Recreation Grounds v Taylor that there was no property in a “spectacle”.

Professor Jill McKeough of the University of Technology Sydney has explained the significance of the case in the collection Landmarks in Australian Intellectual Property Law. She reflects: ‘Victoria Park Racing is still an important decision in the light of attempts to expand notions of property and control of information.’ McKeough notes that the ‘case foreshadows some of the great debates on whether the “sweat of the brow” leads to creation of protectable subject matter; whether the common law recognises rights of privacy; and whether baseball statistics somehow infringes on personality rights.’ Moreover, she observes: ‘The principles discussed are relevant, for example, to attempts by sports associationsand various sporting leagues and codes to assert control over athlete blogging, posting photographs, podcasting (audio online), vodcasting (video online), and the use of player statistics.’

Major sporting organisations have sought to utilise a variety of forms of intellectual property to protect sporting events. Sport has raised issues in respect of copyright law, trade mark law, personality rights, patent law, and sui generis legislation for major sporting events, like the Olympics and the Commonwealth Games. There has often been pressure by major sporting organisations to Australian government to provide for expansive and extensive intellectual property protection in respect of sport.

2. Copyright Law

Historically, sporting events were not protected as copyrightable subject matter. Nonetheless, major sporting organisations have since relied heavily upon copyright protection for television broadcasts. The internet has posed challenges for the traditional exploitation of television rights. The Coalition of Major Professional & Participation Sports — which represents AFL, Cricket Australia, NRL, Tennis, Rugby Union, and Netball Australia — have been an increasingly active lobbyist on copyright law and policy. The Coalition has been advocate of new copyright site-blocking and search-filtering laws, which have passed the Australian Parliament in recent years.

In 2019, there has been an interesting skirmish over copyright law, consumer law, and photography. The Australian Football League (AFL) issued a cease-and-desist notice for copyright infringement to League Tees over a line of T-Shirts and badges, featuring Tayla Harris’s iconic kick in the AFL Women’s Competition. The iconic original photograph, taken by AFL Media chief photographer Michael Willson, after Tayla Harris took a stand against online trolls who had written misogynistic comments on the picture.

The AFL’s general manager of inclusion and social policy Tanya Hosch said Tayla Harris wanted to use the image to raise money for charity:

‘As I understand it, what has occurred in that instance is that Tayla Harris is already in negotiations with the club to have some merchandise put together herself and intends for all of that to go to charity. So we just want Tayla to have the opportunity to pursue that in negotiation with her club and as I understand it, her intention is to make sure money raised go to to Our Watch.’

The intention of Tayla Harris to raise charitable donations for Our Watch, an organisation that aims to end violence against women and children. Tanya Hosch commented: ‘I guess what we are saying here is that Tayla has the right to make a decision about how that image of herself is managed and we want to support her in that opportunity’.

In response, League Tees issued a statement, denying copyright infringement: ‘Badges distributed by the AFL at the AFLW final on March 23 contain a silhouette representation of Tayla Harris that bears a likeness to art shared by social media users on the evening of March 18.’ League Tees maintained: ‘The Tayla Harris inspired artwork created by League Tees is substantially different to any of these designs.’ League Tees also denied that it had engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct:

‘The designs identified by your email first went on sale on leaguetees.com.au at 8:00AM Wednesday March 20. The AFL’s photo of Tayla Harris first came to media prominence on the evening of Tuesday 19. It is impossible to suggest that this image was in the public consciousness for a sufficient time period for it to create a reputation benefit for the AFL. In light of these clear disclaimers we do not believe there is any basis on which to allege that League Tees has engaged in conduct likely to mislead or deceive or conduct likely to be considered passing off.’

League Tees agreed, though, to withdraw the products: ‘Despite primarily being a charity fundraiser, we have decided to remove our Tayla Harris shirt and Tayla Harris badge from sale.’

3. Trademark Law

Sporting organisations have relied upon trade mark law to protect distinctive brands. WIPO has emphasized the important role played by trademark law in respect of marketing and sports sponsorship:

‘Sports sponsorship deals are underpinned by trademark rights and can be extremely lucrative. Recognizing its global appeal and power as a marketing platform, companies in many sectors are turning to sports to build awareness of their products among consumers, drive sales and stand out in a crowded and highly competitive market.’

WIPO reflects: ‘Many sports organizations also use their trademark and other IP rights to leverage the value of their brand by licensing them to third parties to produce merchandize, including apparel, accessories, footwear and more.’

Australia’s major sporting codes — including AFL, Cricket Australia, NRL, Tennis, Rugby Union, and Netball Australia — have extensively relied upon trade marks in respect of competitions and teams. Sometimes, there has been conflict over ownership and exploitation of intellectual property. The A-League is seeking transform its model of governance. Apparently, according to The Sydney Morning Herald, ‘The issue of payment for the intellectual property of the club’s brand names and logos is also a major sticking point.’

In 2019, the Australian Trademark Office handed down an interesting decision in Comite International Olympique v Temptitng Brands Netherlands BV [2019] ATMO 41 (25 March 2019). In this matter, Tempting Brands Netherlands BV sought to extend protection of the trade mark Pierre de Coubertin subject of International Registration 1293867 to Australia under the Madrid Protocol. The Olympic Movement objected to the trade mark extension because of the connection between the Olympic Movement and Pierre de Coubertin. The hearing officer ruled: ‘There is no doubt in my mind that there is a real tangible danger of deception or confusion arising out of the use of the Holder’s Trade Mark in connection with the Holder’s Goods.’ The officer declared: ‘I am satisfied that there are a significant number of people who would be aware of the, almost inextricable, link between Pierre de Coubertin, the Olympic Movement and the Opponent.’ The Officer concluded: ‘Pierre de Coubertin is anything but a nondescript name and will be instantly recognised as the name of the founder of the Modern Olympic movement by a large number of Australians.’ Accordingly, the Officer found that the Olympic Movement had made out its ground of opposition: ‘I am satisfied by the evidence before me that because of the connotation that the name Pierre de Coubertin has, the use of the Holder’s Trade Mark in connection with the Holder’s Goods would be likely to, at least, cause purchasers to wonder whether those goods are in some way sponsored or approved by the Opponent.’

4. Passing Off and Personality Rights

Australian sporting stars have played a key role in the protection of personality rights under the doctrine of passing off. The swimmer Tracey Wickham, the athlete Gary Honey, and the swimmer Kieren Perkins were involved in key test cases over sporting endorsements. Australia, though, has not recognised the United States doctrine of publicity rights.

As sports figures have become celebrities, sporting endorsements have become a big business. WIPO comments upon the significance of personal branding by elite athletes:

‘Top athletes are also getting in on the game. Many are leveraging their personal brands (built around their sporting success) to generate significant revenue through endorsement contracts with major sportswear and other companies. Recognizing the significant marketing potential of these superstars, companies often pay millions of dollars for sports (and other) high-profile personalities to endorse their products. Some even develop product ranges bearing the athlete’s name. That’s what Nike did when it developed its products ranges for basketball superstars Michael Jordan and Lebron James. Countless athletes in many other sports, for example, Lewis Hamilton (Formula One), David Beckham (soccer), Rory McIlroy (golf), Lindsey Vonn (downhill skiing), Maria Sharapova (tennis) and more have benefited from such endorsement deals.’

There has, though, been concern in intellectual property jurisprudence about how the expansion of personality rights has impacted upon consumer rights, freedom of speech, and journalism.

5. Patent Law

In the area of patent law, there have been patents granted in respect of sports equipment and sportswear. WIPO has emphasized:

‘Innovative technologies — typically protected by patents (or as trade secrets) — are taking sports to new heights. These technologies are transforming the sports experience from the training camp to the sports stadium to our living room, and are opening the way for new sports — think e-sport and drone racing — to emerge. Today sports tech is experiencing huge growth.’

In 2019, there has been a striking patent conflict over sportswear in the Australian courts. In March 2019, South Australian physiotherapist and lecturer Carolyn Taylor launched legal action against the retailer Lorna Jane in the Federal Court, alleging infringement of “a patent covering support and compression garments”. The statement observes:

‘[Ms] Taylor believes that Lorna Jane has infringed on the patent with many of their current leggings and shorts and may have done so for many years. The statement of claim filed with the Federal Court lists 68 styles which allegedly infringe. The reason I pursued a patent was because I believed I had an important and novel product. We have spent a lot of money in the patent application process. I wanted to protect our invention and have a unique product on the market. This was my concept and it is now being used by someone else.’

In response to the legal action, Lorna Jane CEO Bill Clarkson denied that the company had engaged in patent infringement: ‘Lorna Jane ha[s] been designing and manufacturing compressive and supportive activewear since 1989, when Lorna started hand-making leotards and short tights for herself and then the clients in her aerobics classes, in turn pioneering the activewear category.’ Clarkson maintained: ‘Compression and support tights have been part of our business for the last 30 years, over 20 years before this patent was lodged.’

It will be interesting to see how this action over patent infringement progresses in the Federal Court of Australia.

6. Sui Generis Legislation

There has also been sui generis legislation passed to protect major sporting events. Australia has passed special laws for the 2000 Olympics. There were significant issues with ambush marketing, the misappropriation of Olympic Insignia, and clean venues.

In the case of Australian Olympic Committee, Inc v Telstra Corporation Limited [2017] FCAFC 165 (25 October 2017), the Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia considered an action by the Australian Olympic Committee over the alleged ambush marketing of the Olympics by the telecommunications provider Telstra. The Full Court noted the legal argument:

‘In summary, the Statement of Claim alleges that Telstra used one or more protected Olympic expressions in the Telstra advertisements in breach of s 36 of the OIP Act ( OIP Act claim ). The Statement of Claim also alleges that each of the Telstra advertisements conveyed a false representation, or had a tendency to cause people erroneously to assume, that Telstra or its products or services have some form of endorsement, sponsorship, affiliation or sponsorship like arrangement with the Olympic Games, the Olympic movement, the AOC or another Olympic body such as the International Olympic Committee ( ACL claim ).’

The Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia dismissed the action: ‘We have considered the materials afresh and conclude that the primary judge’s decision does not reflect the errors for which the AOC contends.’

The Commonwealth Games hosted in Queensland in 2018 were also buttressed by special legislation.

There have been concerns about whether such sui generis regimes impinge upon freedom of speech and news reporting. On occasion, there has been intellectual property actions over culture-jamming the Olympics.

7. Indigenous Intellectual Property

There have even been issues around Indigenous intellectual property and sport. In Australia, Indigenous artists in July 2000 objected to the International Olympic Museum reproducing their copyright works on its website without seeking their prior permission. The International Olympic Museum had been exhibiting the original works as part of its Aboriginal art exhibition in Lausanne, Switzerland. After legal objections, the International Olympic Museum took down the works in December 2000.

In New Zealand, Maori custodians have objected to the misappropriation of “Ka Mate”, a haka performance, which has been made famous by the All Blacks. It is notable that Article 31 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples 2007 emphasizes that ‘Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain, control, protect and develop their cultural heritage, traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions, as well as the manifestations of their sciences, technologies and cultures, including human and genetic resources, seeds, medicines, knowledge of the properties of fauna and flora, oral traditions, literatures, designs, sports and traditional games, and visual and performing arts (my emphasis).’

Conclusion

Australia has a rich jurisprudence in respect of intellectual property and sport. There has been significant litigation in respect of copyright law, trademark law, personality rights, patent law, sui generis legislation, and Indigenous intellectual property. Moreover, there has been concerted efforts to persuade the Australian Government to provide extended intellectual property protection in respect of sport. There have been tensions, though, between the rights of intellectual property holders, the mass media, and the sporting public. There has also been an increasing concern over the commercialisation of sport — the transformation of various games from amateur, community activities into professional sport run for big business.

Dr Matthew Rimmer is a Professor in Intellectual Property and Innovation Law at the Faculty of Law in 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 (QUT IL GG). 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. He is currently working on research on intellectual property, the creative industries, and 3D printing; intellectual property and public health; and intellectual property and trade, looking at the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, and the Trade in Services Agreement. His work is archived at QUT ePrints , SSRN Abstracts and Bepress Selected Works .

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Published on April 25, 2019 21:06

December 18, 2018

Human Rights in Queensland and Beyond: QUT Faculty of Law Event

Human Rights in Queensland (and beyond)

Wed. 19 September 2018

5:30 pm — 8:00 pm AEST

Room-Three-Sixty

Level 10, Y Block, QUT Gardens Point Campus

Brisbane, Queensland 4000

Human Rights in Queensland and Beyond

https://medium.com/media/8de5d61ec141753c68f5f09eec5e30a4/href

Overview

Human Rights are standards that allow all people to live with dignity, freedom, equality, justice and peace.

Join us for a keynote presentation with Professor George Williams, Dean and Anthony Mason Professor of Law at the University of NSW, where he will examine a range of issues related to human rights in Australia and internationally. A diverse panel of experts will then offer 5 minute lightning talks reflecting on the importance of a Human Rights Act in their specific domain.

In the absence of a federal bill or charter of human rights in Australia, human rights are not adequately protected and this has profound consequences for all Australians. In early 2018, the Palaszczuk government confirmed that a human rights act will be introduced in Queensland and this represents a significant development in Australia’s wider human rights framework. This will be the third human rights act to be introduced into Australia’s state and territories following the Human Rights Act 2004 (ACT) and the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006 (Vic).

This public lecture will involve a high profile human rights legal scholar and advocate examining a range of issues related to human rights in Australia and internationally. This will include Australia’s international human rights obligations, the current state of human rights (or lack thereof) in Australia, the process and challenges associated with the development, implementation and enforcement of human rights charters, and most importantly what a human rights act in Queensland will mean for Queenslanders and Australians more broadly.

Keynote Speaker

Professor George Williams, Dean and Anthony Mason Professor of Law at the University of NSW

Panel

Ms Aimee McVeigh, Director of Human Rights for QLD Campaign

Mr Shane Duffy, Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Legal Service QLD

Ms Karyn Walsh, Micah Projects

Mr Phil Green, QLD Privacy Commissioner

Mr Peter Russo MP, Member for Toohey

Ms Matilda Alexander, Founding Director of LGBTI Legal Service

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Published on December 18, 2018 19:55

The Australia-European Union Free Trade Agreement and Brexit

The Australia-European Union Free Trade Agreement and Brexit: QUT Symposium

The Australia-European Union Free Trade Agreement and Brexit

QUT Intellectual Property and Innovation Law Research Program

Brisbane, Queensland

Thursday, 26 July 2018

Event Overview

This event will focus upon intellectual property, trade, and innovation in Australia, the United Kingdom and the European Union. In particular, this research workshop will focus upon the Australia-European Union Free Trade Agreement, and Brexit. This event will build upon our past events on international trade, looking at the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.

Firstly, it will consider the debate over Brexit, and its implications for intellectual property and trade for the European Union and the United Kingdom. As the work of Dreyfuss and Dinwoodie has shown, there has been concern about a ‘great unraveling’. It will consider the suggestion that the United Kingdom could join the Trans-Pacific Partnership in the wake of Brexit — in spite of its geographical distance from the Pacific Rim.

Secondly, it will consider the Australia-European Union Free Trade Agreement, and outstanding controversies in respect of intellectual property, trade, and investment. In particular, it will examine the conflicts over geographical indications relating to Prosecco — which has been a flashpoint in the negotiations. It will also explore potential joint collaboration on research and development and innovation between Australia and the European Union.

This event is part of a larger research theme of the QUT Intellectual Property and Innovation Law Research Program, looking at Globalisation, International Trade, and Sustainable Development.

Title: The Digital Economy — a global perspective

Professor Marek Kowalkiewicz

Head of Chair in Digital Economy

Leader of IFE Embracing Digital Age theme QUT

https://medium.com/media/5f524cf4af80cc14a10f893e689efaf5/href

Abstract

The Digital Economy has given rise to completely new phenomena, changing the way we live, work, and think. It has challenged our understanding of the world, and made some of our ways of measuring it (productivity, wellbeing, or global trade) obsolete. In this talk, Professor Marek Kowalkiewicz will outline the exciting challenges and opportunities of the digital economy, and discuss how they are being addressed by QUT’s academics and their partners around the world, including Europe.

Biography

Professor Marek Kowalkiewicz has spent the last ten years working with small and large businesses, governments and individuals in Australia, Singapore and Silicon Valley. He has been helping them to address challenges and identify opportunities brought by the digital economy. Marek is a Professor in Digital Economy at QUT, a board member, and a startup founder. He is passionate about understanding how trends in business, technology, and communities change the way we live, work, and think.

Free Trade, Globalisation and the Anglosphere: analysing the elite the drivers of Brexit

Dr Ben Wellings

School of Social Sciences, Monash University

https://medium.com/media/99775cb4e77ace97bcba458345652b7f/href

Abstract

Brexit is routinely portrayed as a revolt of those ‘left behind’ by the benefits of globalisation and a revolt against the ‘cultural anxieties’ of the current age. Such elements are easily discernible in the motivations of ‘Leave’ voters. Yet concentrating on this aspect of the vote for Brexit obscures an important dynamic that became more apparent as the negotiations for UK withdrawal unfolded: that at an elite level, Brexit was championed by those who felt that there had not been enough globalisation in the United kingdom rather than too much. Withdrawal required an alternative to the UK’s membership of the EU and this was provided by a new idea with older antecedents called ‘the Anglosphere’. At its heart, the Anglopshere consisted of five ‘core’ nations (The USA, the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) that were united by language, culture and history and who all understood the correct relationship between states and markets as prescribed by proponents of ‘Anglobalisation’. Free trade agreements were crucial to the Brexiteer project, and despite enthusiasm from Australia and New Zealand, a strong counter-current from the USA threatened to strangle this strategy at birth, a strategy that was undermined by the enduring ties of regional trade. The strategy contained further risks: by promoting an FTA and hyper-global agenda, the elite leaders of Brexit risked inflaming more of the political resentments that they capitalised on to bring about Brexit in 2016.

Biography

Dr Ben Wellings is a lecturer in Politics and International Relations, and the Deputy-director of the Monash European and EU Centre in the School of Social Sciences at Monash University. Dr Wellings is an expert on Brexit and the politics of nationalism and Euroscepticism in contemporary Europe. He was educated at the University of Sussex, Edinburgh University and the Australian National University. He has worked in the House of Commons and for a public affairs company in Edinburgh advising clients on the impact of Scottish devolution, as an assistant curator at the National Museum of Australia and as a merchant seaman on the English Channel.

Title

Just Keep Calm & Carry On: The Impact of Brexit on Intellectual Property Laws in Britain and the European Union

Dr Alexandra George

Faculty of Law, UNSW

Copy of Paper

Abstract

Britain’s decision to “Brexit” from the European Union (“EU”) has generated great uncertainty about what will happen to existing and future intellectual property laws and interests.

This paper examines the effects that Brexit seems likely to have upon copyright, patent, trademark and design law in Britain and the EU. It outlines the current frameworks in operation in each of these areas, and discusses how these might be developed in response to Britain’s departure from the EU. Brexit’s prospective impacts on plant variety rights, geographical indications, semiconductor topographies, trade secrets, and intellectual property practice issues in the EU and Britain are also considered.

The paper concludes that, from an intellectual property perspective, the economic interests of both Britain and the rest of the EU are likely to be best served in the mid- to longer-term by taking a “soft Brexit” approach to intellectual property laws. Avoiding rhetorical posturing or retaliation for perceived slights seems, ultimately, likely to produce the best intellectual property-related consequences for both parties.

Britain and the EU both stand to damage their commercial environments if their intellectual property arrangements are dramatically altered as a result of Brexit. By contrast, if Britain maintains many existing single market arrangements with respect to intellectual property law — even at the cost of reducing the policy-making freedom that it would enjoy under a “hard(er)

Brexit” — the result may be mutually beneficial interdependence. This would arguably produce the best commercial outcomes for the EU and Britain alike.

Biography

Dr Alexandra George joined the UNSW Law Faculty in 2007, having had earlier academic appointments at Queen Mary, University of London, the University of Wales, Swansea and the University of Exeter in the UK. She has also worked at the European University Institute, Florence, Italy and at the University of Sydney, has practised as an intellectual property and media lawyer, was Associate to Justice MF Moore in the Federal Court of Australia and the Industrial Relations Court of Australia, and worked in journalism at Reuters.

Alexandra’s research focuses on international intellectual property and the philosophy of intellectual property law. Recent publications examine issues of jurisdiction and enforcement in international intellectual property law, including intellectual property implications of Brexit. Her research also examines issues such as the metaphysics and structure of intellectual property law, and ‘property’ concepts in the commodification of intangible objects.

Her book Constructing Intellectual Property (Cambridge University Press, 2012) examines the ways in which the legal system defines into existence and regulates intellectual property. By analyzing the metaphysical structure of intellectual property law and the concepts the legal system uses to construct ‘intellectual property’, the book helps to explain the role of intellectual property from a structural — rather than the traditional normative — perspective.

In 2013, Alexandra received a Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Teaching Excellence at UNSW. In 2016, she was named ‘Academic of the Year’ at the national Lawyers Weekly Women in Law Awards, and awarded a Pro Bono Award for her work for The Arts Law Centre of Australia.

Future Australia-European Union Free Trade Agreement and copyright: what could we expect in the IP chapter?

Dr Rita Matulionyte

The University of Newcastle

https://medium.com/media/46a4f1c9a19ce1c9dacd0606ea48782d/href

Abstract

The presentation discusses what copyright provisions the future Australia EU FTA could contain in the IP Chapter. Looking at the more recent agreements that the EU negotiated with other countries, such as FTAs with South Korea (2011), Canada (2014) and, most recently, Japan (2017), and the significant differences between IP chapters in those agreements, it is rather difficult to speculate what copyright provisions EU might want to see in the FTA with Australia. If EU-Canada FTA is used as a blueprint, it could be a rather easy win for Australia with no need to raise copyright protection standards. However, if the EU chooses to push for stronger protection and attempts to export its own most recent copyright law provisions, like it did with Japan, the negotiation would be more interesting. Depending on how successful the adoption of the proposed EU Directive on Copyright in the Single Digital Market is, the negotiations with the Australian government may include such issues as extended term of protection to record companies (from 50 to 70 years), a new right to press publishers and a new duty on Internet intermediaries to apply technical measures with the purpose to control copyright piracy online.

Biography

Rita Matulionyte is a lecturer at the Newcastle Law School and an associated senior researcher at the Law Institute of Lithuania, with a research focus on intellectual property law, especially copyright and creative industries. After accomplishing her PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property and Competition Law (Germany) in 2010, she worked as a lecturer at the University of Hannover (Germany), had a post-doc at Kyushu University (Japan), and was a deputy director of the Law Institute of Lithuania. She had internships in the European Commission and the World Intellectual Property Organization, and has since been closely following the European and international developments in the area of IP law. She has a list of over 30 peer-reviewed publications, mostly in in the area of copyright law and creative industries, has produced a few reports for governmental organizations (European Patent Office, European Commission, the Government of South Korea, the Government of Lithuania etc) and has been invited to speak in conferences in the US, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore and elsewhere.

Title: The Prosecco Wars: Intellectual Property and Geographical Indications under the Australia-European Free Trade Agreement

Professor Matthew Rimmer

QUT Faculty of Law

https://medium.com/media/39293acfafbfeac44f595b900ebca278/href

Abstract

Historically, Australia’s laws on trade mark law and geographical indications have been affected by a number of bilateral agreements with the European Union. The European Community-Australia Wine Agreement 1994 led to amendments of the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation Act 1980 (Cth) — and comprehensive protection in respect of geographical indications in respect of wine and spirits. There was significant litigation over the boundaries over Australian geographical indications — particularly in Coonawarra and the King Valley. There have also been tensions in other regions such as the Hunter Valley and the Margaret River. The rules on geographical indications were further updated by the European Community-Australia Wine Agreement 2007.

There has been significant debate this time round over the fate of Prosecco wines produced in Victoria. Italy has indicated that it wants a geographical indication for Prosecco during industry discussions. Australian wine-makers have been irate about this proposal. Ross Brown from Brown Brothers has argued: ‘We’re in the box seat if we manage the opportunity correctly. It’s quite a sleight of hand for the Italians to claim prosecco as a GI when for so long it’s been a grape variety … it’s a commercial clawback opportunity.’

Australian trade minister Steve Ciobo has maintained: ‘Every effort will be made to maximise our access to the EU market, while also seeking geographical indications outcomes that will enable continuing use of grape variety names, such as prosecco, for Australian wine products.’ Federal Opposition workplace relations and rural and regional Australia assistant spokeswoman, Lisa Chesters, said she was worried about the potential for international GIs to hurt more Australian industries. ‘I’ve got serious concerns about geographical indicators because where does it begin and where does it end? What’s next? It would be the equivalent of you can no longer call pizza pizza … what do you call it and how do you market that? That’s that great Australian story, that you bring a part of your culture with you and grow an industry from it.’

There has also been debate over whether the European Community will seek to expand the protection of geographical indications to include food and foodstuffs under the proposed new trade agreement. Historically, Australia has relied upon trade marks to protect regional food — such as King Island cheese and beef, Beechworth honey, and Bega Cheese. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has brought action in respect of the misleading and deceptive origin of food products — for instance, in relation to beer labelling. There has also been discussion of the utility of geographical indications to protect Indigenous intellectual property — for instance, in relation to genetic resources.

To further complicate matters, Australia is considering the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP-11) this year. Despite the departure of the United States, the text of the agreement still bears the hallmarks of American influence — particularly in respect of trade mark law and geographical indications.

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 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 (QUT IP IL). 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. He is currently working on research on intellectual property, the creative industries, and 3D printing; intellectual property and public health; and intellectual property and trade, looking at the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, and the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, and the Trade in Services Agreement. His work is archived at QUT ePrints, SSRN Abstracts, and Bepress Selected Works.

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Published on December 18, 2018 18:57

Intellectual Property and Sustainable Development: QUT Symposium

QUT Faculty of Law Intellectual Property and Innovation Law Research Program:

Intellectual Property and Sustainable Development

Symposium

Thursday, 6 September 2018

8:30am to 5:00pm

OJW Room, Level 12, S Block

QUT Gardens Point Campus

OVERVIEW

This event considers the relationship between intellectual property and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The new Secretary-General of the United Nations Antonio Guterres has expressed concerns about the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals. “Implementation has begun, but the clock is ticking… The rate of progress in many areas is far slower than needed to meet the targets by 2030.” The Director-General of the World Intellectual Property Organization Francis Gurry has emphasized the interconnections between intellectual property and the Innovation Goal (SG9). He also stressed that innovation has an impact on a number of other SDGs, such as SDG2 (End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture), SDG3, SDG6 (Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all), SDG7 (Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all), SDG 8, SDG11 (Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable), and SDG13 (Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts).

This event will provide a systematic consideration of the linkages between intellectual property and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. As well as keynote speaker Associate Professor Sara Bannerman, this event will feature speakers from QUT, Griffith University, and the University of Queensland. It will help build a culture of transdisciplinary research. This event is part of the research theme of international trade and sustainable development at the QUT IP and Innovation Law Research Program. This will also boost the Faculty’s work in respect of international law and global governance. It will also cover issues such as access to knowledge, public health, access to clean energy and climate change, and the global economy. This event in particular will focus upon the global issues within the remit of the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Development Agenda.

Session 1

Intellectual Property and the Sustainable Development Agenda

Associate Professor Sara Bannerman, Canada Research Chair in Communication Policy and Governance, McMaster University

https://medium.com/media/5d7a146d1186d5f5cafec6aa02b6bf05/href

Abstract

The discourse of sustainable development articulates a change in the relationship between international intellectual property institutions and the global political economy. Just as the discourse of development (in the 1960s and 70s, and again in the last fifteen years) animated a rearticulation of the roles and mandates of international intellectual property institutions, the discourse of sustainable development calls for a new round of change.

This paper evaluates the discourse of sustainable development as it is brought to bear within the global intellectual property system. The Sustainable Development Goals seek to engage and animate networks to end poverty and hunger, achieve dignity and equality, and to build a healthy environment. In part one, I discuss the ways in which the international intellectual property system in currently engaged in the sustainable development agenda. In part two, I examine the similarities between the sustainable development agenda, established in 2015, and the development agendas that, between 2001 and 2015, engaged the international intellectual property system. In part three, I examine the key differences between the agendas of development and sustainable development, and the significance of these differences in the context of international intellectual property. Finally, I discuss the road ahead.

Biography

Sara Bannerman, Canada Research Chair in Communication Policy and Governance, is an Associate Professor of Communication Studies at McMaster University in Canada. She teaches on communication policy and governance. She has published two books on international copyright: International Copyright and Access to Knowledge (Cambridge University Press, 2016) and The Struggle for Canadian Copyright: Imperialism to Internationalism, 1842–1971 (UBC Press, 2013), as well as numerous peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on international copyright, international copyright history, and other topics in new media, traditional media, and communications theory. Bannerman is a Vice Chair of the Law Section of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR).

Session 2

Open Access, Equity and the Sustainable Development Goals

Professor Virginia Barbour, Director AOASG, QUT

https://medium.com/media/e5aae19811b892e6097829c088fa2825/href

Abstract

Open access originally focused on ensuring access to read and reuse research. However, as the movement has evolved it has begun to address many of the other problems with inequity in the scholarly publishing system, including inequity in ability to publish, the effects of lack of access in innovation, especially in less developed countries, and how traditional models of publishing and incentive structures serve many areas of academia very poorly.

This year’s Open Access week theme “Designing Equitable Foundations for Open Knowledge” addresses the issues of equity and inequity in the system head on. By both explicitly stating the need for equity and the need for purposeful design of the system, it also resonates with the principles in Goal 4 (Quality Education) and Goal 9 (Industry Innovation and Infrastructure) of the Sustainable Development Goals

Biography

Professor Virginia (Ginny) Barbour is Director of the Australasian Open Access Strategy Group and Advisor to the Office of Research Ethics & Integrity and the Library at QUT.

In 2004 she was one of the three founding editors of PLOS Medicine. She was the journal’s first Chief Editor, ultimately becoming PLOS Medicine and Biology Editorial Director. She chaired the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) from 2012-May 2017.

She has a medical degree from Cambridge University, and a DPhil from the University of Oxford.

She has been involved with many Open Access, publishing, reporting and ethics initiatives, currently including HIFA and Evidence AID. She writes for the Conversation.

The Benefits of Job Automation are Not Likely to be Shared Equally

Dr Md Shahiduzzaman, Research Fellow, Chair in Digital Economy, Queensland University of Technology

https://medium.com/media/c4c7e02f2d29d532c8533a7e4840a551/href

Abstract

In this paper, we draw upon recent evidences on wage inequality and productivity growth in advanced countries in the world. Although there is overwhelming data about rising economic surpluses from automation, recent evidence indicates that the growth of productivity and the growth of workers’ wages are not actually linked. Companies might reap significant gains in productivity from automating certain jobs, this won’t necessarily lead to pay rises for everyone. Contemporary evidence suggests businesses might pass on the gains to some workers, but not to all. Some 40% of all jobs are predicted to disappear with automation in Australia. Now we are starting to see the effect of automation everywhere and especially in productivity and economic growth statistics. It’s expected that automation will make a trillion of dollars of productivity boost between 2015 and 2030. But whether productivity gains will be redistributed equally, remains highly questionable. For example, in the United States, recent research shows a large divergence between productivity and median hourly compensation growth, from 2000 to 2011. Similarly, in Australia, we found wage growth lagging productivity growth, across most sectors of the economy. Average productivity growth was much higher than average wage growth in most sectors of the Australian economy during 2012–16. The paper reviews recent trends in data and empirical evidence in the context.

Biography

Shahid’s work has also been published in the Conversation and Australian Financial Review and industry reports. He has led national and international research projects.

Session 3

The Inspiration of Joseph Stiglitz: Intellectual Property, Sustainable Development, and Inequality

Professor Matthew Rimmer

https://medium.com/media/1a94b585ab151edd89046f085ece4fa3/href

Abstract

This essay considers the distinctive contribution of Joseph Stiglitz to the debate about intellectual property, sustainable development, and inequality. Stiglitz has been widely celebrated for his economic work. He received the Nobel Prize in economics in 2001; and the Sydney Peace Prize in 2018. Throughout his career, Stiglitz has demonstrated a strong interest in the topic of inequality. In the field of trade, Stiglitz has written on Globalization and Its Discontents (2003), Making Globalization Work (2007), and Fair Trade for All (2007). He has been an ardent critic of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. His book The Price for Inequality (2012) examines different dimensions of inequality in the United States. Stiglitz has also shown a deep interest in education and sustainable development. His co-authored book Creating a Learning Society: A New Approach to Growth, Development, and Social Progress (2014) focuses upon education, knowledge, and development.

In the area of intellectual property, Stiglitz has shown an interest in a number of areas of intellectual property and development. In the area of access to medicines, he has been vocal about the impact of patents upon public health and human rights. Likewise, in the area of gene patents, Stiglitz highlighted questions of intellectual property and inequality in the context of the controversy over Myriad Genetics. In collaboration with Baker and Jayadev, Stiglitz has published a long policy paper, Innovation, Intellectual Property, and Development (2017). This work focuses upon the basic logic of intellectual property and its alternatives — such as direct financing, and patent prize financing. The work considers intellectual property and food, agriculture, and plant genetic resources. Stiglitz along with Baker, Jayadev have also considered intellectual property and climate change. They have focused upon education and intellectual property as well — highlighting copyright and access to educational materials; parallel importation; exceptions to copyright infringement; and compulsory licensing. Stiglitz, Baker, and Jayadev have advocated the refashioning of the intellectual property regime to promote sustainable development through the use of flexibilities, compensatory liability regimes, and alternative mechanisms. They have also promoted the development of a knowledge commons, and keeping publicly funded innovation in the public domain.

Biography

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. He is currently working on research on intellectual property, the creative industries, and 3D printing; intellectual property and public health; and intellectual property and trade, looking at the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, and the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, and the Trade in Services Agreement. His work is archived at QUT ePrints SSRN Abstracts Bepress Selected Works.

— — — — — — —

Innovation with a Purpose: Can Technology Innovation Revolutionize Health and Well-being?

Muhammad Zaheer Abbas, QUT

https://medium.com/media/3385c9a8e0e72d92c714cabf473bbfae/href

Abstract

Good health holds a central role in sustainable development as it enhances the ability of a community to develop human capital, undertake productive economic activities, and attract investment. Provision of universal public health is an indispensable requirement for sustainable development and it deserves to be a priority as this is a matter of basic justice and human rights. This paper focuses on the potential role of technology innovation in achieving global health goals. After providing a background to the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) №3: Good Health and Well-being, this study focuses on the following research questions: To what extent can the current innovation system help in achieving health-related SDGs? What are implications of the current innovation system for poorer and middle-income countries pursuing health-related SDGs? What are policy options available, in the current international legal regimes, for third world countries to improve universal public health despite budget constraints? What steps can be taken at an international level to harmonise technological innovation policy with the UN’s Sustainable Development Agenda 2030, especially, global health goals?

Biography

Mr. Muhammad Zaheer Abbas is a lecturer in law at International Islamic University, Islamabad, Pakistan. He is currently conducting his PhD research at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) as a recipient of QUT Postgraduate Research Award (QUTPRA). He studied Law at International Islamic University, Islamabad and obtained BA General and LLB (Hons) with distinction in 2010. He also obtained LLM in International Law, with distinction, from the same university in 2012.

He has nearly 7 years of legal teaching and research experience at university level. He also served as Associate Editor of ‘Islamabad Law Review’, a peer reviewed open access research journal of Faculty of Shariah & Law. He has published 10 research papers, related to intellectual property protection and the public interest, in reputed peer-reviewed journals. His research publications include:

· “WTO Paragraph 6 System for Affordable Access to Medicines: Relief or Regulatory Ritualism”, Journal of World Intellectual Property, 2018;

· “Compulsory licensing and access to medicines: TRIPS amendment allows export to least-developed countries”, Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice, 2017;

· “Rationale of Compulsory Licensing of Pharmaceutical Patents in the Light of Human Rights Perspective”, Pakistan Perspectives, 2014;

· “TRIPS Flexibilities: Implementation Gaps between Theory and Practice”, Nordic Journal of Commercial Law, 2013;

In 2014, Mr. 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. Mr. Abbas has been an active legal academic and researcher and has published and presented regularly in his area of teaching and research interest.

‘Tobacco a Threat to Development’: Tobacco Control and Sustainable Development

Sanath Sameera Wijesinghe, QUT

https://medium.com/media/8538e74e82fb00168d6416199869ca5c/href

Abstract

‘Tobacco a Threat to Development’ was the theme of ‘World No Tobacco-Day 2017’, which emphasized the State obligations towards implementation of tobacco control measures to promote public health and well-being, eradication of poverty and sustainable development. The globalization of tobacco epidemic has been one of the most challenging problems in the world as its multi-dimensional nature such as the relationship with health, economy, trade, investment and human rights. Also, it is worth noting that the health and economic burden of tobacco directly affects to the law and middle-income countries when comparable to high income countries. Inevitably, if there is no proper mechanism in place to combat tobacco epidemic, the development will be another dream for such countries. Therefore, it is amply clear that the tobacco control can be viewed through a lens of sustainable development and can be considered as part and parcel of sustainable development agenda. Interestingly, tobacco control measures can link with sustainable development goals (SDGs) such as promote health and well-being (Goal 3), preservation of environment (Goal 12), and goals relating to income and social life such as no poverty (Goal 1), zero hunger (Goal 2) and decent work and economic growth (Goal 8). However, the relationship between tobacco control and health and well-being will be central for the discussion of this research. Firstly, this research aims to discuss the impact of World Health Organization’s Framework Convention of Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) in achieving SDG 3; good health and well-being. Then, it explores different tobacco control measures practiced by State parties to the WHO FCTC and its efficacy in combating tobacco epidemic. Thereafter, it intends to identify challenges of implementing such tobacco control measures. Finally, it aims to make suggestions to achieve sustainable development in general and health and well-being of the people in particular through better implementation of tobacco control measures.

Biography

He has done several publications including peer-reviewed journal articles on protection of geographical indications, tobacco control and intellectual property rights, collective management of copyrights and related rights and some aspects on international humanitarian law.

Session 4

Gender Equality in REDD+ and Equitable Benefit Sharing

Dr Rowena Maguire, QUT

https://medium.com/media/87dab1e911f2243281b00340d5a3e682/href

Abstract

Sustainable Development Goal 5 seeks to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. Women and girls need equal access to education, health care, decent work and representation in political and economic decision-making processes. The equal participation of women in decision-making processes will fuel sustainable economies and benefit societies and humanity at large. Women have an important role to play in fulfilling the sustainable development goals in shaping sustainability policy at international and national levels and in being involved at the grass roots level to implement sustainable practices. Research demonstrates that there are differential implications of climate change for women and men. Due to the social roles that women perform (food production, water harvesting, cooking, and caring) women will feel the impacts of climate change in daily life. This presentation will explore the Reduced Emission from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) mechanism within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change focusing on benefit sharing mechanisms and issue arising for women in this context. The presentation will focus on issues of property rights and participation for women and discuss the need for amending current REDD+ safeguards to consider gender in project implementation.

Biography

Dr Rowena Maguire examines how climate and environmental law impacts upon vulnerable populations. Her PhD focused on forest regulation and led to a collaboration with Cambridge University to implement a donor funded project in Kenya. Rowena then explored how countries share the burden of addressing climate change as a Chief Investigator on an ARC Discovery Project.

Rowena is currently working on projects examining the impacts of climate change and environmental degradation upon women and exploring mechanisms for enhanced gender representation in climate forums and the implementation of gender-responsive climate policy.

Plants, Patents, and Power: Terminalia ferdinandiana, Intellectual Property, and the Empowerment of Women in Australia

Jocelyn Bosse, University of Queensland

https://medium.com/media/ea0b22604879d18b0cb44c14caf935e5/href

Abstract

The rich knowledge of Indigenous women has an important role to play in conservation and sustainable use of biological resources, but is often unrepresented in policy discussion. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals recognize that gender equality, including the representation of women in political and economic decision-making processes will fuel sustainable economies and benefit society. To that effect, a key target is to “ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public life”.

Historically, the intellectual property regime has been a tool for the appropriation of biological resources and associated traditional knowledge, such as the patent claims over the Australian native plant, the Kakadu plum (Terminalia ferdinandiana). These intellectual property rights were obtained without the consent or involvement of Aboriginal communities in northern Australia, for whom the fruit has strong cultural value. Today, Indigenous women in remote communities have harnessed the access and benefit sharing frameworks, developed pursuant to the Convention on Biological Diversity 1992, to harvest Terminalia ferdinandiana and develop collaborative research projects with leading female food scientists. The paper will critically examine the assumptions that pervade the intellectual property system, and reflect upon how women are asserting the value of their knowledge, innovations, and decision-making in the context of current Terminalia ferdinandiana research and commercialisation.

Biography

Jocelyn Bosse is a PhD student, ARC Laureate Project Harnessing Intellectual Property to Build Food Security, TC Beirne School of Law, University of Queensland.

Jocelyn’s research explores the circulation of Terminalia ferdinandiana along agricultural commodity chains and the role of the law in shaping social relationships of production, exchange, attribution and reciprocation.

Indigenous Knowledge and Intellectual Property: Effectuating a “Dialogue of Knowledges”

David J. Jefferson, JD

https://medium.com/media/84a8868272e1d80941d49c112551b797/href

Abstract

In its 2016 and 2017 reports, the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues made several recommendations surrounding how Indigenous peoples could be better integrated into the 2030 Agenda. A primary suggestion was to protect and promote the rights of Indigenous peoples, as reflected in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). This Declaration, in turn, recognises that respect for Indigenous knowledge, cultures, and traditional practices contributes to sustainable and equitable development. This recognition is visible in Article 31 of the UNDRIP, which states that Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain, control, protect and develop their traditional knowledge, as well as the manifestations of their sciences and technologies.

Despite the fact that the United Nations has repeatedly acknowledged the importance that Indigenous knowledge holds for sustainable development, no international consensus currently exists surrounding how this knowledge should be legally protected. In this paper, I present a case study of Ecuador to illustrate how an individual State has established national-level protections for Indigenous knowledge in the absence of a binding international framework. Although recently enacted Ecuadorian legislation governs Indigenous knowledge alongside conventional forms of intellectual property, I demonstrate how this regime attempts to move beyond standard proprietary logics to protect Indigenous knowledge according to its own terms. This system endeavours to create a “dialogue of knowledges,” in which Indigenous knowledge can interact with scientific knowledge to address important sustainable development challenges. However, while the Ecuadorian law extends novel opportunities to Indigenous peoples, it could also serve to encourage these groups to “culturalise” and by extension to render their cultural goods according to increasingly possessive — if not necessarily proprietary — logics.

Biography

David J. Jefferson is a PhD Candidate with the ARC Laureate Project ‘Harnessing Intellectual Property to Build Food Security’ at the TC Beirne School of Law, The University of Queensland. Mr Jefferson is also a lawyer licensed in California, USA and the Law and Policy Analyst at the Public Intellectual Property Resource for Agriculture (PIPRA), a non-governmental organisation based at the University of California, Davis. His research focuses on the intersection of intellectual property, agriculture, native genetic resources, and Indigenous knowledge. Mr Jefferson’s PhD field work in Ecuador was supported by a United States Fulbright Scholarship.

Session 5

Revealing the Myths and Complexities of Community Seed Banks

Dr Kamalesh Adhikari, the University of Queensland

https://medium.com/media/ae9324d5395e2683ee912495fd03d8fd/href

Abstract

Sustainable Development Goal 2 sets a number of targets for countries to end hunger, achieve food security, and promote sustainable agriculture. Of these, the creation and management of “seed and plant banks at the national, regional and international levels” is an important target that countries are required to address by 2020. An assumption under this target is that seed and plant banks would “maintain […] genetic diversity” and that these banks would “promote access to and fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the utilisation of genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge”. This assumption is more apparent in a number of scholarly research and global reports that discuss community seed banks in developing and least-developed countries. In this paper, I present a case study of Nepal in order to challenge some prior assumptions, if not claims, about the theory and practice of community seed banks. In so doing, I discuss a number of myths and complexities that affect the conservation, circulation, use, access, and benefit sharing of genetic resources within and through community seed banks. I also discuss how these myths and complexities create challenges for establishing linkages between local, national and international gene banks, including the multilateral system of access and benefit sharing of the Plant Treaty. I argue that failing to understand the myths and complexities of community seed banks not only affects the relationship of community seed banks with national and international gene banks, but also limits the potential of realising the goal of the multilateral system of access and benefit sharing and of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Biography

Dr Kamalesh Adhikari is AIBE Research Fellow and Member of the ARC Laureate Project ‘Harnessing Intellectual Property to Build Food Security’ at the TC Beirne School of Law, The University of Queensland. Dr Adhikari’s current research looks at the role of networks, informality and community seed banks in shaping the governance of biodiversity and seed systems across developing and least-developed countries.

He is also undertaking a critical account of the concept of farmers’ rights in intellectual property law.

Sustainable Cities and Communities: The challenge of the megacity in the Global South

Dr Peter Walters, the University of Queensland

https://medium.com/media/c6f7d582d3f8690d0632b3f6e7aec639/href

Abstract

Cities are where the world’s population growth will take place in the 21st Century, particularly cities of the Global South. Cities have their own sustainable development goal, but it is in cities where the other development goals will also succeed or fail. The goal of creating socially, economically and environmentally sustainable cities is not just a responsibility of the Global South. In this presentation I will outline some of the major challenges facing the urban poor in some of the world’s fastest growing megacities. Drawing on my own research I will address the growing informal economy, corruption, social inclusion; and citizenship and civil society. I will argue that while these are challenges located in the global south; citizens of the affluent industrialised nations all have a stake in this challenge.

Biography

Dr Peter Walters an urban sociologist who teaches and researches in the School of Social Science at The University of Queensland. His research includes urban community and change, gentrification as well as disaster resilience.

He has recently completed a research project on urban poverty and citizenship in Bangladesh and is working on a book titled The Authentic City.

The Tesla battery: Energy justice or just business-as-usual?

Aleesha Rodriguez

https://medium.com/media/56e24bbef23a32457751b6c3b12a27d4/href

Abstract

During the spring and summer of 2016/2017, South Australia experienced multiple widespread blackouts that quickly became the symbol of Australia’s ‘energy crisis’ — a political device to fuel contentious energy policy at both the State and National level. Tesla subsequently became involved — via a bet on Twitter — installing the ‘world’s largest’ lithium-ion battery and since then the idea of ‘battery storage’ has been adopted in the vernacular of energy debates in Australia. Clearly, battery storage is an important actor in SDG 7: ensuring access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all. But a closer examination of the case in South Australia and the Tesla battery uncovers some markers that the battery is ‘business-as-usual’ rather than a disruption of ‘energy justice.’ This presentation will draw attention to three matters of concern and underscore why a critical examination of the Tesla battery is necessary while the energy storage industry is still seeding in Australia.

Biography

Aleesha is a PhD student in the Digital Media Research Centre at QUT. She advocates for better society-nature relations and her research interest is on the intersection of the environment, technology, and society. Aleesha’s academic background includes history, ancient history, studies of religion, and sociology; she has industry experience as a Mac and iOS technician for Apple; and she currently volunteers with the Australia Youth Climate Coalition.

Session 6

Access and Benefit Sharing Genetic Resources, Sustainable Development and Conservation?

Professor Charles Lawson, Griffith University

https://medium.com/media/0dd347958f1cf9d41b9116a3b1427533/href

Abstract

Tracing back to the origins of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity this talk will follow the economic and equity threads through the evolution of access and benefit sharing. The balance between conservation and economic development as a grand plan appears thwarted. There are new possibilities. The crucible of access and benefit sharing genetic resources may just be the place for this new thinking?

Biography

Charles Lawson is a Professor in the Griffith Law School, Griffith University. He studied science and law at The Australian National University and holds a Bachelor of Science with Honours in biochemistry and genetics and a Bachelor of Laws. He also holds a Doctor of Philosophy from the ANU’s Research School of Biological Sciences in molecular biology and biochemistry and a Master of Laws from Queensland University of Technology for research into gene patenting and competition. Before joining the university sector he worked as a lawyer in both the private and public sectors, including at the Australian Government Solicitor and the Commonwealth Department of Finance and Deregulation. His research focus is on patents and public administration law.

Ocean Acidification and SDG 14: Legal Issues

Associate Professor Saiful Karim, QUT

https://medium.com/media/5f97ca082508f6d2a84def80affb7a1a/href

Abstract

One of the targets under SDG 14 is to “[m]inimize and address the impacts of ocean acidification, including through enhanced scientific cooperation at all levels” (14.3). Ocean acidification is another problem created by carbon dioxide emissions alongside global warming. According to the 2017 Report of the UN Secretary-General on the progress towards the SDGs: “[s]tudies of marine acidity at open ocean and coastal sites around the world have indicated that current levels are often outside preindustrial bounds.” Ocean acidification coupled with ocean warming and deoxygenation are creating serious threat to the marine biodiversity. Although Paris Agreement mentions about ocean, it does not specifically address the issue of ocean acidification. Ocean warming, acidification and deoxygenation are not directly covered in the existing international regulatory framework for climate change, ocean governance, marine environment, fisheries and environment. A critical re-examination of the international regulatory framework for these sectors is needed. Against this backdrop, this paper highlights the inadequacy of existing legal framework and its consequential impact on the achievement of the target 14.3 of SDG 14.

Biography

Dr Saiful Karim is an Associate Professor and the Director International of the School of Law, Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Brisbane, Australia. He has held Visiting Faculty position at Sydney University where he taught a postgraduate course on Asia Pacific Environmental Law. He also taught law at southern Cross University and Macquarie University. He was a consultant at the University of the South Pacific. He practiced at a Singapore law firm. He was a lawyer of Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (BELA). He teaches and researches in different areas of international law, law of the sea and environmental law. Saiful has published extensively in the fields of public international law, law of the sea and environmental law and has presented research papers in many conferences and workshops organised by various academic and research organisations based in Asia, Europe, North America and Oceania. Saiful is the author of following three books: Prevention of Pollution of the Marine Environment from Vessels: The Potential and Limits of the International Maritime Organisation (Springer, 2015), Maritime Terrorism and the Role of Judicial Institutions in the International Legal Order (Brill-Nijhoff, 2017) and Shipbreaking in Developing Countries: A Requiem for Environmental Justice from the Perspective of Bangladesh (Routledge, 2018). Saiful is a lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (SROCC). He is also a lead author of the Asia Pacific Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Assessment Report and the Global Assessment of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Report of the IPBES.

Getting off the Treadmill: Is Sustainable Production and Consumption Possible?

Dr Carol Richards, Senior Lecturer, School of Management, Business School, QUT

https://medium.com/media/58b3ddfcc7736de40ab4a1ffeff7328f/href

Abstract

The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals of Responsible Consumption and Production, state that sustainable production and consumption, requires a systemic approach and cooperation among actors operating in the supply chain, from producer to final consumer. Yet, paradoxically, describing civil society actors as ‘consumers’ might suggest we are a long way from addressing the problems of material excesses associated environmental impacts. The UN is not alone in reducing humans to consumers. The same assumptions are built into everyday life where we ‘consume’ food, health care services, legal services, aged care and education. It is argued that constructing ‘citizens as consumers’ imposes identities that are incompatible with the dematerialisation necessary to attain a sustainable future. Taking a critical political economy approach, and drawing upon the food system as a lens into the production/consumption dichotomy, this paper unpacks the co-existence of the treadmill of production in farming alongside aggressive marketing approaches that compel citizens to consume more. It is argued that the SDG goal to ‘ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns’ requires a major cultural shift toward a degrowth ideology, something that is incompatible with dominant social-economic systems at present.

Biography

Dr Carol Richards is a food and agricultural sociologist specialising in sustainable food systems, food insecurity, agricultural land acquisition, food governance and new social movements. She has contributed to academic and public debates on issues relating to power and social justice in the global food system.

Her work examines some of the most critical issues of our times, presenting a scholarly and empirically grounded critique of resource acquisition and distribution.

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Published on December 18, 2018 18:46

December 13, 2018

3D Printing: Intellectual Property and Innovation. QUT Symposium

NASA

QUT Faculty of Law Intellectual Property and Innovation Law Research Program

3D Printing: Intellectual Property and Innovation

Thursday, 25 October 2018

1:00pm to 5:00pm

The Edge Auditorium, State Library of Queensland,

Brisbane, Queensland

Overview

This half-day event will consider the role of 3D printing in intellectual property, education, community participation, and innovation.

The first session will provide a comparative consideration of intellectual property and 3D Printing. Professor Marcus Norrgard from the University of Helsinki will provide a keynote address on intellectual property and 3D Printing in the European Union. There will be a consideration of intellectual property and 3D printing in the United States, Canada, Ireland, and Australia. There will be an examination of the relevance of the various forms of intellectual property — including copyright law, designs law, trade mark law, patent law, and trade secrets, as well as forms of open licensing.

The second session will consider the role in 3D printing in culture heritage, community participation and cultural engagement. The State Library of Queensland will consider the role of cultural institutions as hosts of makerspaces in Queensland and Australia. Living labs have also played an important role in promoting digital participation and cultural engagement.

The third session will explore the role of makerspaces, fabspaces, tech shops, and hackerspaces in relation to innovation, business, and enterpreneurship. There will be a consideration of the application of 3D printing in the fields of health, medicine, and biotechnology. There will be a focus upon how small-to-medium enterprises have made used of 3D printing. There will be a discussion of the role of crowdfunding in supporting ventures of the Maker Movement.

This event will seek to pass on both theoretical and practical insights gained from an ARC Discovery Project to the local maker community.

1. 3D printing, CAD files and European IP law

Professor Dr. Marcus Norrgård, University of Helsinki

https://medium.com/media/235077589f86dfe4140749c575bac632/href

Abstract

3D printing (3DP), is gaining foothold as a viable manufacturing technology especially for small-series, customizable products. Patent, copyright, trademark, and design laws have not however been especially adapted to take into account the advent of this decentralized mode of production. As with many new technologies, 3DP creates friction with IP laws, especially in the form of under-protection.

This presentation gives a general overview of some of the key issues in the clash between 3DP and intellectual property law seen from the point of view of European intellectual property law. Many of the issues stem from the electronically distributable CAD file, which contains the information of the product to be printed in the form of a digital three-dimensional representation. For patent law the CAD file poses an interesting challenge because it is not at all clear, at least in European patent law, that the distribution of CAD files infringes a patent. Especially in cases where the printing itself is done by a private person with a non-commercial purpose, the problem becomes accentuated. A problematic situation may also arise where the infringing acts are divided geographically between different jurisdictions. It would thus be in the interest of the patent holder to be able to enjoin the distribution of CAD files, but it is far from clear that this is possible, at least in Europe.

Trademark law faces similar issues in that commercial use is required for infringement. 3D printing trademarked products in a non-commercial setting would normally fall outside of trademark protection, but it might still have a deleterious effect on the value of the trademark. Also here distribution of CAD files would be a clear point of focus for enforcement efforts.

In copyright law the issues are a bit different, since European copyright law does not require commercial use. Also here at least some of the problems boil down to the significance of the CAD file. Is the CAD file a representation of the ‘work’ the distribution of which is an infringement? Or is it a computer program? Or is it more akin to a blueprint for a product? These questions have not yet been finally solved.

The presentation will primarily focus on these infringement-related questions, but will also briefly touch upon the question of what the rights holder can do to enhance protection against 3D printing (for example, through patent claim drafting).

Biography

Marcus Norrgård is Professor of Law at the University of Helsinki, Vaasa Unit of Legal Studies. He was awarded the Doctor of Laws (LL.D.) degree in 2002 and law degree in 1996, both at the University of Helsinki.

Norrgård is chairman of the Finnish Copyright Council (Tekijänoikeusneuvosto), editor-in-chief for Tidskrift, utgiven av Juridiska föreningen i Finland, chairman of the ethics board of the Finnish Franchising Association and member of the board of Nordiskt Immateriellt Rättsskydd (NIR). He has previously served on the Board of the Finnish AIPPI Group and as editor for Tidskrift, utgiven av Juridiska föreningen i Finland (JFT) and Nordiskt Immateriellt Rättsskydd (NIR).

2. 3D Printing as a Legal Disruptor: Challenges and Insights for Copyright Law

Dr. Kylie Pappalardo, QUT

https://medium.com/media/270f239307522f4a969020445e8efbfa/href

Abstract

3D printing poses challenges to the application and enforcement of intellectual property law, because it facilitates the copying and production of objects with ease, in the home. Communities of practice have also grown around 3D printing, where ‘makers’ share design files (CAD files) for the printers through websites and online fora such as Thingiverse. Sometimes these files may be infringing. But quite separate from anticipated copying and enforcement issues, 3D printers raise deeper questions about the values we use to justify copyright law in the first place.

A cornerstone of copyright protection is originality. For many creators, and in most of the stories and tropes we tell about authorship, originality is closely tied to authenticity. The creative ‘value’ of a work is often measured by its ‘newness’. In creative communities, 3D printing is disrupting some of these established ideas about what it means to be creative. In cosplay communities, for example, reputation is built on authenticity, and authenticity is demonstrated through creating costumes and props from scratch. There are disputes about the extent to which cosplayers can use 3D printing in their creations and still be seen as ‘authentic’. Even outside of cosplay, there are questions around whether creativity is diminished when an artist 3D-prints artistic components that were once made by hand, and the extent to which ‘improvements’ and ‘additions’ to existing objects are new creations worthy of legal protection.

In this presentation, I canvass the empirical work undertaken to date as part of the ARC Discovery Project on 3D Printing and IP Law. I present data and findings derived from qualitative interviews with makers, creators and cosplayers in Australia, Canada and the United States. I explore the ways in which 3D printing is challenging established notions of originality, authenticity and collaborative creation, and how makers and creators are navigating these challenges.

Biography

Dr. Kylie Pappalardo researches in intellectual property and innovation law, focusing primarily on the intersection between copyright and creativity, and the role and regulation of technology intermediaries. She is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow on the ARC Discovery Project, “Inventing the Future: Intellectual Property and 3D Printing.”

Kylie is a Lecturer in the Law School at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Brisbane, Australia, where she leads the research program on copyright law and creative communities. She is also a Centre Member of QUT’s Digital Media Research Centre (DMRC). Kylie holds degrees in Law and Creative Writing from QUT, a Masters of Law from Georgetown University in Washington D.C., and a PhD from the Australian Catholic University. Her doctoral thesis examined the regulation of internet service providers for online copyright infringement.

Kylie has been a senior researcher with the Open Access to Knowledge (OAK) Law Project and with Creative Commons Australia. She has also worked with the Arts Law Centre of Queensland and served on the board of Youth Arts Queensland.

3. Metal 3D Printing: Patent Law, Trade Secrets, and Additive Manufacturing

Professor Matthew Rimmer, QUT

https://medium.com/media/deff0bb2177100ea14be8c2f9e4b47e6/href

Abstract

As part of our ARC Discovery Project, we have created a 20,000+ database of patents classified under the category of additive manufacturing, with the help of IFI Claims Patent Services. The field of 3D printing patents was the second fastest growing field of technology in 2017 (after e-cigarettes). There has been a significant concentration of patents in the field of 3D printing, and a diversification of subject matter in terms of the patent claims. One of the emerging trends has been the rise of patents in respect of metal 3D printing. There has been significant investment in research and development in respect of metal 3D printing in the United States, Canada, the European Union, and Australia.

There has been major commercial interest in the field of metal 3D printing, and significant conflict over the ownership of intellectual property (covering not only patents but also trade secrets). In 2018, Desktop Metal Inc. launched litigation against Markforged Inc. and Matiu Parangi in relation to intellectual property and metal 3D printing. As well as complaints of patent infringement, Desktop Metal Inc. has alleged that the defendants had engaged in acts of trade secret misappropriation, unfair and deceptive business practices, and breach of contract. In July 2018, a Federal Jury found that Markforged Inc. did not infringe two patents held by its rival Desktop Metal Inc. In response, Greg Mark, CEO of Markforged Inc. commented: ‘We feel gratified that the jury found we do not infringe, and confirmed that the Metal X, our latest extension of the Markforged printing platform, is based on our own proprietary Markforged technology.’ Desktop Metal commented: ‘Desktop Metal is pleased that the jury agreed with the validity of all claims in both of Desktop Metal’s patents asserted against Markforged.’ Moreover, Desktop Metal commented: ‘We are currently reviewing legal options concerning the infringement issue.’ Claims of further violations of trade secrets and contract law were debated at trial. The parties have settled their dispute on confidential terms.

Drawing upon this case study, this paper considers whether 3D printing will disrupt patent law, policy, and practice. It also explores the tension between the use of trade secrets in commercial 3D printing, and the open source ethos of the Maker Movement.

Biography

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. He is currently working on research on intellectual property, the creative industries, and 3D printing; intellectual property and public health; and intellectual property and trade, looking at the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, and the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, and the Trade in Services Agreement. His work is archived at QUT ePrints SSRN Abstracts Bepress Selected Works.

Session 2 — Community

4. Creating, Making, and Engaging with Cultural Heritage: 3D Printing in Libraries

Margaret Warren, State Library of Queensland

https://medium.com/media/39849b1d390c940ae57183406e519892/href

Abstract

Libraries have been experimenting with 3D printing, evaluating it as a new technology for audience engagement, understanding it’s potential for creating and making, and grappling with the challenges and opportunities of accessibility to this technology. In addition, 3D printing has potential to enable fragile collection objects to be handled, explored and interacted with through the use of 3D printing, releasing them from the ‘look, but don’t touch’ paradigm that has been necessary for their conservation and preservation. This presentation will explore 3D printing in libraries, using examples of the use of 3D printing in public libraries and at The Edge, and profile a project at State Library of Queensland to digitise and print a fragile 1950s Braille Globe.

Biography

Margaret Warren is the Director of Content Management at the State Library of Queensland. She was previously the co-ordinator of Discovery Services at the State Library of Queensland. In terms of her education, she has worked with high school aged students teaching in the areas of English, Music and Mathematics.

As a librarian, Margaret Warren has a wide range of library experience including reference librarianship, collection development, project management, development of digitisation standards and guidelines, online delivery of audio and video, library management systems, systems librarianship, organisational change projects.

She is the Chair of Copyright Advisory Committee at the State Library of Queensland, and has expertise in copyright law and the creative commons. * ABC News Photograph

5. Social Living Labs for Community Situated Co-Design

Associate Professor Michael Dezuanni, QUT DMRC

Abstract

This paper is not about 3D printing per-se. It is about a research methodology for deep co-design that values local knowledge. The social living labs methodology can be applied to community 3D printing projects as much as it can be to any other social, creative or design-based activity. The paper locates the methodology in the context of community based digital inclusion initiatives that seek to assist at risk community members to participate more fully in digital activities. The Australian Digital Inclusion Index shows that people living on low incomes, indigenous Australians, people without a secondary school education, people living with a disability and older Australians are at risk of low levels of digital inclusion.

Meanwhile, 3D printing may be considered to be a relatively inaccessible activity, particularly for those at risk of digital exclusion. On a hierarchy of device familiarity, platforms access, and software complexity, most 3D printing participants are likely to have at least medium, if not high levels of digital inclusion.

This paper explains how the social living labs methodology works, and how it might it has been used with participants who want to know about 3D printing, but who have little knowledge about it. It will also outline the early stages of a social living lab that is being planned for implementation at The Edge, involving severely physically disabled young people who want to enhance their digital creativity and design skills, including 3D printing.

Biography

A/Prof Michael Dezuanni undertakes research about digital media, literacies and learning in home, school and community contexts. He is the Associate Director of QUT’s Digital Media Research Centre which produces world-leading research for a creative, inclusive and fair digital media environment. Michael has been a chief investigator on five ARC Linkage projects with a focus on digital literacy and learning at school, the use of digital games in the classroom, digital inclusion in regional and rural Australia, and the use of screen content in formal and informal learning.

Recent projects have focused on how young Australians access, perceive and are affected by the news: http://apo.org.au/node/120076; and he has led the development of the Queensland report for the Australian Digital Inclusion Index. Michael has co-authored and edited three books for leading international publishers and has published forty peer reviewed journal articles and book chapters. From 2010 to 2015, Michael was the expert advisor to the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) for the development of Media Arts for the Australian Curriculum.

Session 3 — Innovation

6. Adoption and Diffusion of Disruptive Technologies: The Case of Additive Manufacturing in MedTech Industry in Australia

Dr Sam Tavassoli, RMIT University

Abstract

This presentation provides the preliminary findings of a newly granted two-year project, between RMIT and Stryker, investigating the adoption of disruptive technologies by focusing on the case of Additive Manufacturing (AM) in the Medical Technology (MedTech) industry, particularly implant applications. The expected outcome of the project is a comprehensive guideline for the adoption and diffusion implants applications of AM among Australian firms. This is done by developing pathways for manufacturers to enable them to navigate through the existing market, technological, and regulatory uncertainties that characterise the industry. The impact of the project will be to unlock the potential of AM applications in the MedTech, which will benefit potential new entrants to the industry, incumbent firms, health care system, and patients in Australia.

In specific, the presentation outlines followings: (i) stakeholder mapping of the industry in Australia. This included members of industry, researchers, academics, regulatory experts and MedTech consultants. (ii) Identifying the top four major “opportunity areas” in which innovation can foster the adoption of AM implants. Such opportunity areas are: developments in Science & Materials, Technology, Business Models, and Regulation & Quality. (iii) Identifying and discussing the barriers in realising such opportunity areas in practice. Finally, (iv) recommending solutions based on the discussion and understanding of the proposed barriers that are hindering the wide spread adoption and diffusion of 3-D printed medical implants.

Biography

Sam Tavassoli is a Lecturer in Innovation & Entrepreneurship at RMIT University and also a research fellow at Centre for Innovation, Research and Competence in the Learning Economy (CIRCLE), Lund University, Sweden. He holds a PhD in Industrial Economics from Blekinge Institute of Technology and a Postdoc from Lund University, Sweden. Sam was also a visiting scholar at University of North Carolina, U.S, during his PhD program. He is an industrial engineer by basic training and has a master degree in Innovation Management from Linköping University, Sweden. Sam has research interest in economics of innovation & technological change, innovation strategies of firms, entrepreneurial firms, and geography of innovation & entrepreneurship.

7. 3D Printing: Funding the Road-trip to Scale

Anne Matthew, QUT

Abstract

This presentation considers the dynamics of access to finance for 3D printing start-ups and the positive ripple effects flowing from disruption caused by additive and discrete manufacturing. Corporate law tightly regulates how companies can seek investment in exchange for equity. In recent years Titomic, Robo3D, Aurura Labs and 333D have engaged in initial public offerings with varying degrees of success. It is evident from these initial offerings that while sophisticated investors may have an appetite for high-risk investment, they have a corresponding appetite for reward. Listing is not an option for fledgling companies that have not yet reached scale. For these companies, the window between concept development and set-up or prototype development is most often where the need for capital becomes acute. This point in the innovation cycle can present as a make or break capital gap for start-ups. At this fledgling stage it can be a struggle to attract investment. There are high hopes that equity crowdfunding can help to fill the capital gap by opening opportunities to tap into new markets of unsophisticated investors with an appetite for taking risks on good ideas. While engaging in equity funding can accelerate growth, it comes at the cost of surrendering equity and, to some extent, control of the company; this is an uneasy prospect for many makers. This makes reward-based crowdfunding an attractive option. Reward-based crowdfunding facilitates public fundraising, but without the regulatory trappings or relinquishing of control associated with equity-based fundraising.

Given the place of additive manufacturing in supply chains, and the possibilities of reduced production costs and speedy prototypes produced in discrete manufacturing, the success of 3D printing businesses are intertwined with the success and survival of the big business, innovators, creators and makers utilising their service. Supporting 3D printing will inevitably support other start-ups since it has potential to dramatically shrink the window between concept development and prototype development for innovators and creators. Early experiences of 3D printing companies with fundraising should encourage policy makers to review and refine access to finance options, as well as ensuring that transition to scale is not hampered or hindered by their corporate form.

This presentation will consider recent developments in equity crowdfunding, threshold issues with gatekeeper liability and the preparedness of fintech to allow unsophisticated investors access to funding opportunities. Lessons from the experience of 3D printing businesses with reward-based crowdfunding will be considered.

Biography

Anne Matthew is a Lecturer in the Law School at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT). Anne researches the regulation of technologies, innovation, entrepreneurship, primarily through the lens of corporate law. Anne’s research includes a focus on legal issues arising with artificial intelligence. Her current research projects include an examination of regulatory approaches to artificial intelligence within the financial services sector, particularly as it continues to deploy deep-learning algorithms and technologies more extensively. Anne is currently undertaking a PhD in the regulation of corporate governance in innovative and entrepreneurial enterprise. Anne’s PhD thesis engages with economic theory to explore how legal and regulatory frameworks accommodate and encourage entrepreneurship and innovation, access to finance and good corporate governance. Anne leads the UNCITRAL National Coordination Committee, Australia’s Expert Advisory Group on Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise and is an active member of the Banking and Financial Services Law Association’s Academic Committee. Anne is a member of the Intellectual Property and Innovation Law Research Program and the Commercial and Properly Law Research Centre. Following her admission as a solicitor of the Supreme Court of Queensland, Anne practised in banking, finance and small business advisory.

Anne is keen to support the ongoing success of start-up culture development and innovation initiatives on campus and participates as an academic mentor in Disrupting Law, an annual 54 hour hackathon in which lawyers and students collaborate to generate new ideas seeking to advance legal practice via technology and innovation.

8. 3D Printing Technologies: Trends, Opportunities, Innovation and the Circular Economy

Angela Dahlke, QUT Foundry

Abstract

The potential and promise of 3D printing (3DP) technologies is exciting — but how will 3DP impact humanity’s future? This is uncertain — and the stakes are high — so it’s important we understand the risks and opportunities from a systems level. 3DP is certainly expanding what’s possible with, and who can engage in, design and manufacturing. Its unlocking creative expression and empowering maker movements. It offers rejuvenation of local industries as an enabler of new value and venture creation by innovators, entrepreneurs, and organisations. But where is it headed? How can we harness this technology for maximal benefit — economically, socially and environmentally? What are the important system level forces, signals, and megatrends we must heed so as to better see, shape and seize opportunities whilst avoiding unintended harm? Our current context requires us to reimagine how we design, manufacture, exchange and preserve value, with transition to a circular economy recommended to restore natural capital and unlock new opportunities for growth and prosperity. The future impact of 3DP can be net positive, if we so make it. Let’s explore how.

Biography

Angela Dahlke is passionate about harnessing innovation and entrepreneurship, and empowering others to do so, to solve challenges, create new value, and realise positive impact. Angela has a unique depth and breadth of experience across sectors, professions and knowledge-disciplines plus demonstrated impact as an innovator, entrepreneur and researcher. Her post-graduate qualifications are in science, business, and law, and she is a patent & trademarks attorney (registered in Australia and New Zealand). She helps current and future innovators and entrepreneurs at QUT’s start-up hub, QUT foundry, and lectures in entrepreneurship at QUT Business School.

Angela’s side hustles embrace using business as a force for good. She is a co-founding executive of Hacking Health Queensland, which co-hosted the World Hospital Congress’ first Design Jam to bring together health stakeholders and experts to co-create solutions in health and care. Angela is also a co-founder and published scientist of Bionauts.com.au, which protects and discovers biodiversity, essential for sustaining life on earth, and sequences the genetic ‘library of life’. Bionauts have led successful expeditions leading to scientific discoveries and publications with high school students. They have also been invited to join the moon-shot Earth Bio-genome Project. Angela is an advocate for helping transition to the circular economy for the opportunity it affords and because it’s a necessity.

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Published on December 13, 2018 23:19

November 25, 2018

Climate litigation heats up globally

Matthew Rimmer, QUT

26th November 2018

Climate change lawsuits against governments have had more success than those against fossil fuel companies and are a legal tool for communities and Indigenous groups to promote climate change mitigation and adaptation.

The finding is contained in a chapter of a new book, Intellectual Property and Clean Energy, by QUT Intellectual Property and Innovation Professor Matthew Rimmer.

“Climate litigation has been on the rise in the United States, the European Union, and Australia versus both governments, and fossil fuel companies. The results, though, have been mixed,” Professor Rimmer said.

“While the climate litigation in the Urgenda case in the Netherlands was a success, litigation elsewhere has faced various procedural and substantive hurdles and obstacles.”

The book discusses the emerging field of atmospheric trust litigation in relation to Alaskan lawsuits brought by Indigenous people under the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and other frameworks.

Professor Rimmer said the public trust doctrine, whereby the sovereign holds in trust for the public resources that belong to everyone, was a theoretical framework being expanded by Indigenous communities and others to address climate change.

“The atmospheric trust litigation by Nelson Kanuk v State of Alaska is an important test case on the use of the public trust doctrine to underpin their call for protection of Indigenous rights, including traditional knowledge, from the impact of climate change.

“The intent is to formalise governments’ duty to protect not only land, water and oceans but also the atmosphere and the climate by seeing all nations as co-tenant trustees with obligations to their citizens and future generations.”

Professor Rimmer said legal theorists were exploring bases for climate litigation because international diplomatic efforts and treaties had failed by politicising climate change.

“Australia has not recognised the public trust doctrine and so environmental defenders here have had to rely upon alternative legal avenues such as piecemeal regulation,” he said.

“Climate change litigation in Australia has influenced regulatory and decision-making processes but hasn’t been able to address the underlying social, political and economic structures supporting carbon-intensive systems.

“The Alaskan atmospheric trust litigation is a useful precursor to a much more systematic pattern of climate litigation to address policy inaction by governments.

“In Australia native title holders have challenged Adani’s Carmichael coal project and Indigenous Pacific communities are investigating redress for loss and damage wrought by climate change.

“We are seeing the inextricable link between climate change, human rights, intergenerational rights and Indigenous communities in this new field of litigation.

“More and creative uses of existing doctrines will be employed to bring governments to account for climate change inaction, especially as the Trump administration repeals and rescinds environmental regulation and climate protections instituted by the Obama administration.”

QUT Media contacts:
Niki Widdowson, 07 3138 2999 or n.widdowson@qut.edu.au
After hours: Rose Trapnell 0407 585 901 or media@qut.edu.au

Niki Widdowson, ‘Climate Litigation Heats Up Globally’, QUT Media, 26 November 2018, https://www.qut.edu.au/news?id=138449

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Published on November 25, 2018 19:21

October 29, 2018

3D printing shakes up intellectual property rights

3D Printing Shakes Up Intellectual Property Rights

22nd October 2018

NASA — International Space Station Expedition 42 Commander Barry “Butch” Wilmore shows off a ratchet wrench made with a 3-D printer on the station.

https://www.qut.edu.au/news?id=137229

The emerging trend in 3D printing of products has resulted in a massive spike in patents being classified, according to QUT researchers.

The QUT Faculty of Law Intellectual Property and Innovation Research Program is hosting an event on 3D Printing on Thursday, October 25, 2018 at the State Library of Queensland .

The half-day symposium considers the role of 3D printing in intellectual property, education, community participation and innovation.

“Metal 3D printing has significant implications in respect of engineering, car manufacturing, and aerospace,” said Professor Matthew Rimmer from QUT’s Faculty of Law.

“A sign of the rising commercial value of metal 3D printing has been the emergence of patent conflicts in the field.”

Professor Rimmer said a dispute between Desktop Metal and MarkForged over patents, trade secrets and unfair competition was an example of how future conflicts over intellectual property and 3D printing may arise.

As part of an ARC Discovery project, Professor Rimmer has been mapping the patent field of 3D printing.

“We have created a database in excess of 20,000 patents classified under the category of additive manufacturing, with the help of analysts,” he said.

“The field of 3D printing patents was the second fastest growing field of technology last year after e-cigarettes.”

The symposium will feature a keynote address by Professor Marcus Norrgard from the University of Helsinki on intellectual property, regulation, and 3D printing in the European Union.

Professor Norrgard will also discuss what the rights holder can do to enhance protection against 3D printing, through patent claim drafting.

The event also features leading Australian academics in the field of intellectual property.

QUT lecturer Dr Kylie Pappalardo said a cornerstone of copyright protection was originality and 3D printing was a significant “disruption” regarding the creative value of work.

“3D printing poses challenges to the application and enforcement of intellectual property law because it facilitates the copying and production of objects with ease, in the home,” she said.

Associate Professor Michael Dezuanni from QUT Digital Media Research Centre will be discussing the role of social living labs for communities at the event.

Anne Matthew from the QUT Faculty of Law will explore the business of 3D printing.

Angela Dahlke from the QUT Foundry will be investigating 3D Printing Technologies and the Circular Economy.

Media contacts:
media@qut.edu.au
After hours: Rose Trapnell, 0407 585 901