IP Mosaic
The IIPSJ MOSAIC IP Law and Policy Roundtable Conference
Purpose and Objectives
The IIPSJ Mosaic Roundtable Conference was established to bring together scholars, law and policy makers, and social activists of diverse and multicultural backgrounds and perspectives to explore progressive and non-traditional ideas in intellectual property law, policy, and social activism. Beginning in the late twentieth century, digital information technology and other innovations sparked a paradigm shift in scholarly assessment of the social ordering function of IP protection, exposing the need to critically examine the law’s social justice obligations in promoting human rights, self-determination, cultural progress, and nation-building and evolution. Because IP law and policy makers traditionally value scholarly analyses in their development and interpretation of IP protection, this emerging body of progressive, social justice-oriented IP scholarship, especially when infused with the experience and insights of social activists and policy makers, can provide them with the doctrinal basis for shaping a more socially responsible IP legal regime.
The Mosaic Roundtable Conference Format
Each Roundtable Conference is organized around a specific IP social justice legal issue, policy, or socio-economic problem, and is comprised of four paper or project presentation sessions; each session is divided into a principal presentation, a commentator’s assessment, and open discussion. Representative Roundtable topics include equitable access to health, medicines, knowledge, and information; socially beneficial application of information technology and related advances to IP development and dissemination; legal protection for traditional and indigenous knowledge and expression; and promoting IP awareness, education, and entrepreneurial and socio-political empowerment in marginalized communities. The Roundtable Conference is also amenable to expansion into a two day format, to accommodate plenary panels, keynote presentations, and “incubator project” and work in progress sessions.
IP protection is intended to play an important role in engendering human development, socio-economic empowerment, and social justice. The traditional tools and experience of scholarly analysis, reflection, and discourse, however, are not always readily adaptive toward targeted social action, or what is sometimes referred to as “public intellectualism”. Through the IIPSJ Mosaic Roundtable Conference, IP scholars can work together with political activists, practicing attorneys, community organizers, and policy makers to produce “activist scholarship”, to collaborate on various “IP Empowerment” policy initiatives and projects, and to otherwise help to shape and effectuate a progressive and contemporary IP socio-legal agenda.
2014:The First Annual IP Mosaic Conference: Diverse Voices in IP Scholarship
Luncheon Keynote: Reconstructing the IP Scholar Activist
New to IP
We realize that many entrepreneurs, creators, and inventors may not have a lot of time to research and understand Intellectual Property (IP) law. We created this section of the website to provide some initial information about IP and how to find out more about the IP issues that are relevant to you. We have begun to gather information and resources to answer some of the most common IP related questions. If you have a general IP question* not answered below, feel free to email it to us at updates@iipsj.org.We will continue to update this page as we find new resources and receive new questions.
*Note we cannot provide legal advice but we do include links to organizations that provide free or low cost legal advice.
Intro to Intellectual Property (IP)
The most common types of IP are patents, trademarks, and copyrights.
| Type of IP | Protects | A little more information | Federal Registration for Protection at |
| Patents | Inventions | - rights grant the inventor ownership rights in their invention
- grants the inventor an exclusive right to make, use, offer for sale, or sell the invention |
US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)
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| Trademarks | the way we identify who made or provides the products or services | rights may be used to prevent others from using a confusingly similar mark in commerce in connection with the same or similar products or services | USPTO |
| Copyrights | Original works of authorship | rights grant the author the exclusive right to reproduce the copyrighted work, to prepare derivative works, to distribute copies of the copyrighted work, to perform the copyrighted work publicly, or to display the copyrighted work publicly | US Copyright Office |
Learn More:
USPTO
Article: What Are Patents, Trademarks, Service marks, and Copyrights?
Video: Basic Facts: Trademarks, Patents, and Copyrights
U.S. Small Business Administration video: Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights
Check out our Legal Resources page to find free and low cost services to help you with your IP.
Check back for additional information.