Giuseppina D’Agostino is the Founder and Director of IP Osgoode, and an Associate Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School
Welcome back to another vibrant year at IP Osgoode! Time certainly has flown by since Osgoode’s Intellectual Property Law and Technology Program launched a couple of years ago. We are extremely proud of the diverse contributions we have made to the public policy debate through our online review (IPilogue), events, and deepening community involvement. Our strength lies in our people, and we are grateful for our growing community of student Editors, Advisory Board Members, Research Affiliates, and International Advisory Council Members.
We are also thrilled to have Professor David Vaver, former Chair of the Oxford Intellectual Property Research Centre, back aboard, as Professor of Intellectual Property Law at Osgoode. A lucky set of Osgoode students will benefit from the opportunity to participate in the prospective publication of a draft code through Professor Vaver’s inventive legal reform seminars this Fall—one focusing on copyright, and the other on patent and trade-mark. Our varied course offerings continue, of course, to expand and challenge traditional legal pedagogy.
On that front, we are pleased to announce that in September 2011, we expect to inaugurate the Intellectual Property Law and Technology Intensive Program. This trailblazing Program will provide students with practical knowledge and experience in areas currently underserved in law school curricula and complement Osgoode’s unique leadership in clinical education. An 11-week internship (where the student will be placed among members of the judiciary, government, industry or other IP-oriented organizations) will be coupled with seminars, research papers, discussion sessions, and IPilogue exercises.
We constantly strive to make the student experience more comprehensive as part of our inclusive, interdisciplinary, vision. Our outgoing IPilogue Editors have been writing insightfully; Canada’s IP Writing Challenge, established last year in conjunction with the Intellectual Property Institute of Canada, received a wide range of entries from a broad spectrum of backgrounds and institutions (stay tuned for this year’s winners); and, speaking of winners, our IP moot team placed second in the 2010 Harold G. Fox Moot. This year’s team hopes to place first, as does our Copenhagen contingent, which is soon off to an international treaty negotiation competition!
In all respects, we have a busy year ahead. As part of our IP Osgoode Speaks lecture series, we will feature guests such as Professor Graham Dutfield from the University of Leeds who will deliver a lecture entitled “Patents on Steroids: What Hormones Tell Us About the Evolution of Patent Law” (mark October 28th on your calendars). I will also be speaking on my latest book, Copyright, Contracts, Creators – New Media, New Rules, on October 12th. And, on September 28th, we will be gathering to bid a fond farewell to outgoing Assistant Director Rex Shoyama, and warmly welcome his replacement, Reuven Ashtar, and our new IPilogue editorial team.
Everyone is always welcome to attend all of our events, and further details will be available on our site. As always, if you have any project ideas or would like to work with us, we would be delighted to hear from you. Indeed, any community is only as vibrant as its contributors. We have the benefit and challenge of being at the forefront of a historic intellectual property debate. Please join us: your perspective is invaluable.
Enjoy, and we hope to see you soon!