8th Annual IP Mosaic Conference 2022
MOSAIC IP LAW AND POLICY ROUNDTABLE CONFERENCE
Through these conferences, 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.
October 28-29, 2022
Online Conference
Eighth Annual IP Mosaic Conference
Co-hosted by Marquette University Law School
Theme: Access for All? The Role of IP in Equity, Power, and Democracy in Challenging Times
Friday, October 28
Program: 9:30 am – 5:00 pm CDT/ 7:30 am – 3:00 pm PDT/ 3:30 pm – 11:00 pm BST/ 4:30 pm – 12:00 am GMT
Virtual Happy Hour: 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm CDT/ 3:00 – 4:00 pm PDT/ 12:00 am – 1 am BST/ 1:00 am – 2:00 am GMT
Saturday, October 29
Program: 9:30 am – 5:00 pm CDT/ 7:30 am – 3:00 pm PDT/ 3:30 pm – 11:00 pm BST/ 4:30 pm – 12:00 am GMT
IP Mosaic Conference Schedule
9:30-9:45 am CDT
Welcome & Remarks
Dean Joseph Kearney, Dean and Professor of Law, Marquette University Law School
Lateef Mtima, Professor of Law, Howard University School of Law & Founder and Director, Institute for Intellectual Property and Social Justice (IIPSJ)
9:45-11:00 am CDT
Plenary Session: International IP and Social Justice
Moderator: Lateef Mtima, Professor of Law, Howard University School of Law & Founder and Director, IIPSJ
Panelists:
Madhavi Sunder – IP for Next Pandemic
Metka Potočnik – Multitude of Voices in International IP: World Intellectual Property Organization and Accredited Observers
11:00 – 11:05 am CDT Break
11:05-12:20 pm CDT
Panel 1: Toward Reparative IP Policy
Moderator: Kali Murray, Professor of Law, Marquette University Law School
Presenters:
Cathay Smith — Cancelling Dr. Seuss
Timothy McFarlin – A Copyright Restored: Mark Twain, Mary Ann Cord, and How to Right a Longstanding Wrong
Trevor Reed – Restorative Justice for Indigenous Culture
12:20 – 12:50 pm CDT Lunch Break
12:50-2:35 pm CDT
Panel 2: 2022 Ben Liu Scholars
Moderator: Jasmine Abdel-Khalik, University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law
Presenters:
Adithya Variath – TWAIL and Protecting Traditional Knowledge: Perspectives on Decoloniality and Social Justice in IP Law
Jordana Goodman and Khamal Patterson – Access to Justice for Black Inventors
–Break —
Tiffany Nichols – Patenting Automated Race and Ethnicity Classifications: Discerning Epistemic Understandings of Race and Ethnicity Through Patent Literature
Arunima Shastri and Batra – Patentability of Inventions Done In Metaverse and the Regulatory Measures That Need To Be Undertaken
2:35 – 2:45pm CDT Break
2:45-4:00 pm CDT
Plenary Session 2: Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts v. Goldsmith Amici
Moderator: Tuneen Chisolm, Associate Professor of Law, Howard University School of Law
Panelists:
Sandra Aistars, Clinical Professor of Law, and Founding Director of the Arts & Entertainment Advocacy Clinic at GMU Law
Loletta Darden, Visiting Associate Clinical Professor of Law & Director, Intellectual Property and Technology Law Clinic, George Washington University Law School
Philippa Loengard, Kernochan Center for Law, Media and the Arts, Columbia Law school
Kevin Madigan, Copyright Alliance
Lateef Mtima, Professor of Law, Howard University School of Law & Founder and Director, IIPSJ
Betsy Rosenblatt, Professor of Law, The University of Tulsa, College of Law
Jeff Sedlik, Photographer, Professor, Art Center College of Design
4:00 – 4:10 pm CDT Break
4:10-5:00 pm CDT
Panel 3: Traditions or Traps? Patent Inventor Access under Review
Moderator: Loletta Darden, Visiting Associate Clinical Professor of Law & Director, Intellectual Property and Technology Law Clinic, George Washington University Law School
Presenters:
Sharon Bar-Ziv, Orit Fischman-Afori, Miriam Marcowitz-Bitton – Where The Gender Gap Meets Academic Patenting: An Empirical Study
Colleen Chien – Redefining Progress To Include Diversity In Innovation And Inventorship
5:00-6:00 pm CDT HAPPY (& SOCIAL) HOUR ONLINE
9:30 – 9:40 am CDT
Opening Remarks
• Kali Murray, Professor of Law, Marquette University Law School
• Lateef Mtima, Professor of Law, Howard University School of Law & Founder and Director, IIPSJ
9:40-11:55 am CDT
Inaugural Student IP Scholars Roundtable
Moderator: Tuneen Chisolm, Associate Professor of Law, Howard University School of Law
Panelists
Zuri Ward – North Carolina Central University School of Law – Umbrella: Combating Systemic Racism by Providing Black Creators Accessible Tools to Safeguard their Intellectual Property
Commenter – tbd
Drew Emerson – Howard University School of Law – Legal Solutions To Combat The Misapplication of DMCA Claims To Video Game Streaming
Commenter – tbd
Taniya Moore – Howard University School of Law – Protecting Nostalgia: Should Copyright Protection Include A Parallel To Trademark Law’s Incontestability Status?
Commenter – tbd
11:55am – 12:00 pm CDT Break
12:00-1:45 pm CDT
Panel 3: Distribution of Power and IP Stakeholders
Moderators: Lateef Mtima, Professor of Law, Howard University School of Law & Founder and Director, IIPSJ
Presenters:
Metka Potočnik — Collectivity without Solidarity, Inclusion or Democracy: a Feminist Critique of Collective Rights Management of Copyright
Patricia Aufderheide & Brandon Butler — Copyright and Other Obstacles to Text- and Datamining Research: The Need for a Right to Research
–Break–
Niharika Salar & Bernd Justin Jütte — Geographical Indications: Community Rights in a global IP system
Faith Majekolagbe, Assistant Professor, University of Alberta Faculty of Law — Copyright and Equitable Access to Education and Learning for All in Pandemic and Post-Pandemic Times: Towards a Global Fair Use Right?
1:45 – 1:55 pm CDT Break
1:55-3:10 pm CDT
Plenary Session: Wikimedia and Access to Knowledge
Moderator: Shreyanka Mirchandani Changaroth, Wikimedia Race and Knowledge Equity Fellow
Panelists:
Margaret Chon, Donald and Lynda Horowitz Professor for the Pursuit of Justice, Seattle University School of Law
Faith Majekolagbe, Assistant Professor, University of Alberta Faculty of Law and Fellow, Harvard University Berkman Klein Center
Colleen Chien, Professor of Law, Santa Clara University School of Law
Brett Frischmann, Professor of Law, Villanova University School of Law
J. Jan Osei-Tutu, Associate Dean for Diversity, Culture & Inclusion and Professor of Law, Florida International University Law School
Betsy Rosenblatt, Professor of Law, The University of Tulsa College of Law
3:10-4:55 pm CDT
Panel 5: IP Boundary Dynamics
Moderator: Jasmine Abdel-Khalik, University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law
Presenters:
Lukas Goncalves — Preserving the Right of Access to Copyrighted works based on Data Regulation
Sharon Sandeen — The Employee’s Right to Learn
–Break –
Dustin Marlin – The Nightmare of Dream Advertising
Ram Mohan and Aditya Gupta — Mutation of the Trademark Doctrine: A case study in Barbie
4:55 pm CDT
Closing Remarks
Lateef Mtima, Professor of Law, Howard University School of Law & Founder and Director, IIPSJ
About the IP Mosaic Conference
Each IP Mosaic Conference is typically organized around a specific IP social justice legal issue, policy, or socio-economic challenge. Representative conference themes 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 conference format is principally comprised of paper or project presentation sessions and plenary panel discussions. In addition, keynote presentations and “incubator project” and work in progress sessions are also mainstays of the conference.
The Pragmatic Intersection of Scholarly Analysis and Law and Policy Development
IP protection is intended to play an important role in engendering human development and actualization toward the greater societal good. 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 IP Mosaic Conference, IP scholars engage with social activists, practicing attorneys, 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.
Conference Planning Committee
Jasmine Abdel-Khalik, University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law Janewa Osei-Tutu, Florida International University
Tuneen Chisolm, Howard University School of Law Metka Potocnik, University of Wolverhampton, Law School
Nicole Morris, Emory Law Srividhya Ragavan, Texas A&M School of Law
Lateef Mtima, Howard University School of Law Betsy Rosenblatt, The University of Tulsa, College of Law
Kali Murray, Marquette University Law School Kara Swanson, Northeastern University School of Law
Since 2014, IIPSJ has sponsored the IP Mosaic Conference. Through the IP Mosaic, IIPSJ collaborates with a law school host to provide a venue in which to explore the social ordering function of IP protection in the total political economy, particularly the law’s social justice obligations in promoting human rights and actualization, cultural and technological progress, and self-determination and nation-building. 
The IP Mosaic Conference was established to bring together scholars, law and policy makers, and social activists of diverse and multicultural backgrounds and perspectives to explore progressive, social justice-oriented 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. IP law and policy makers traditionally value scholarly analyses in their development and interpretation of IP protection. Progressive, social justice-oriented IP scholarship, especially when infused with the experience and insights of policy makers and social activists, can provide the doctrinal basis for shaping a more socially responsible IP legal regime.
Institutional Partners
6th Annual IP Mosaic Conference 2020
MOSAIC IP LAW AND POLICY ROUNDTABLE CONFERENCE
Through these conferences, 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.
Save the Date
View Past Events
October 30-31, 2020
12 – 4:30 pm CST
Online Conference
Sixth Annual IP Mosaic Conference: The Arc is Hot! Using IP to Further Social Justice
Hosted by Marquette University Law School
Since 2014, IIPSJ has sponsored the IP Mosaic Conference, a peripatetic scholarly forum in which legal scholars and policy and social activists present and develop progressive theses in the field of IP Social Justice. Through the Mosaic Conference, IIPSJ collaborates with a law school host to provide a venue in which to explore the social ordering function of IP protection in the total political economy, particularly the law’s social justice obligations in promoting human rights and actualization, cultural and technological progress, and self-determination and nation-building.
About the Mosaic Roundtable
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.
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Program Agenda
Friday, October 30, 2020
12 – 12:15 pm CST Welcome Remarks
• Kali Murray (Host)
Professor of Law, Marquette University School of Law
• Joseph Kearney (Host)
Dean, Marquette University School of Law
• Lateef Mtima (MOSAIC Core)
Professor of Law, Howard Law School
Founder and Director, IIPSJ
• Recognition of Benjamin Liu Memorial Scholars (denoted by **)
Jasmine Abdel-Khalik, University of Missouri-Kansas School of Law
12:15 – 12:50 pm Plenary Session 1
12:50 – 1:00 pm BREAK
1:00 – 2:20 pm Works-in-Progress Session #1
Moderator: Janewa Osei-Tutu, Associate Professor, Florida International University College of Law
Presenters:
Posthumous Endorsements & BLM – Andrew Gilden, Associate Professor, Willamette University College of Law
Genetic Resources & TK in TransBoundary Situations – Margo Bagley, Professor, Emory University School of Law and Frederic Perron-Welch, Ph.D Candidate
Should Copyright Apply on Tribal Lands? – Trevor Reed, Associate Professor, Arizona State University Sandra Day O’Conner College of Law
–5 min BREAK–
Law, Race, and Alchemy – Bita Amani, Associate Professor, Queen’s University
Copyright’s Memory-Based Rights – David Simon, Visiting Associate Professor & Frank H. Marks Intellectual Property Fellow, George Washington University Law School
2:20 – 2:30 pm BREAK
2:30 – 3:55 pm Roundtable Session – Full Papers
Moderator: Keith Robinson, Associate Professor, Southern Methodist University and Willajeanne McLean, Professor, University of Connecticut Law School
Presenters:
The Role of Civil Society Organizations in Patent System – Muhammad Zaheer Abbas, Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, Queensland University of Technology
Exposing Gender Bias in IP: The Music Industry – Dr. Metka Potocnik, Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, Wolverhampton Law School
–5 min BREAK–
True and False Inventors: Race, Gender, and Appropriation by Patent – Kara Swanson, Professor, Northeastern University
Patent & Innovation Inequalities – Colleen Chien, Professor, Santa Clara Law School
4:00 – 4:30 pm HAPPY HOUR
Saturday, October 31, 2020
12:00 – 1:00 pm Incubator Session
Moderator: Tuneen Chisolm, Associate Professor, Campbell University School of Law
Presenters:
Empirical Study of Gender & Race in TM Prosecution – Miriam Marcowitz-Bitton, Professor, Bar-Ilan University, Deborah Gerhardt, Professor, University of North Carolina, and Mike Schuster, Assistant Professor, University of Georgia Terry College of Business
Using IP to Further Social Justice (TM Prosecution) – Ed Timberlake, Attorney, Timberlake Law
Black Lives Matters and BLM as TMs – Irene Calboli, Professor, Texas A&M University School of Law
Legendary Houses: Voguing, Trademarks and Transformation – Betsy Rosenblatt, Professor, University of Tulsa College of Law
1:00 – 1:10 pm BREAK
1:10 – 3:30 pm Works-in-Progress Session #2
Moderator: Christine Haight Farley, Professor, American University School of Law
Presenters:
Weaponizing Copyright – Cathay Smith, Associate Professor, Alexander Blewett III School of Law, The University of Montana
Reimagining Moral Rights Thru a Feminist Lens – Carys Craig, Associate Professor, Osgoode Hall Law School York University and Anupriya Dhonchak, Student
IP as Security for Finance – Eleanor (Ellie) Wilson, Trainee Solicitor, Virtuoso Legal**
–5 min BREAK —
Digital Exhaustion: Furthering SJ in Streaming-Dominated CR Ecosystem – Peter Mezei, Associate Professor, University of Szeged**
Liberation Registration: Antebellum African American Copyright – Brian Frye, Associate Professor, University of Kentucky College of Law
3:40 – 3:50 pm BREAK
3:55 – 4:20 pm Plenary Session
Moderator: Jasmine Abdel-Khalik, Associate Professor, University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law
The Color of Creatorship Intellectual Property, Race, and the Making of Americans Interview with with Anjali Vats, Assistant Professor, Boston College Law School and Deidré A Keller, Dean, Florida A&M University (FAMU) College of Law
4:20 – 4:30 pm Closing Remarks
Lateef Mtima
7th Annual IP Mosaic Conference 2021
MOSAIC IP LAW AND POLICY ROUNDTABLE CONFERENCE
Through these conferences, 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.
October 21-23, 2021
Online Conference
Seventh Annual IP Mosaic Conference: IP as Protest, Change, and Empowerment
Hosted by Mitchell Hamline Law School in St. Paul, MN
REGISTRATION NOW OPEN
At the IP Mosaic Conference, a diverse collective of academics, policy leaders and activists will convene to consider and critique intra and extrajudicial means of disrupting and dissecting traditional notions of IP protection. The theme of this year’s conference is IP As Protest, Change, and Empowerment. We will discuss papers and projects that specifically address the intersection of intellectual property and social justice, particularly as it relates to race, gender, and other social classes, constructs, and conditions, as well as papers that address pedagogy on race and IP. Join us online October 21-23 for these discussions and more.
Program Schedule
Thursday, October 21, 2021
4:30 – 6:00 pm CDT
Social Cocktail Hour
Featuring Chris Montana, Founder of Du Nord Social Spirits
Friday, October 22, 2021
11:00 – 5:40 pm Central Daylight Time (CDT)
5:40 pm – 6:40 pm CDT Virtual Happy Hour
11 – 11:25 am CDT
Welcome & Remarks
Sharon Sandeen, Professor of Law and Director of IP Institute, Mitchell Hamline University School of Law
Lateef Mtima, Professor of Law, Howard University School of Law & Founder and Director, Institute for Intellectual Property and Social Justice (IIPSJ)
11:25 – 12:45 pm CDT
Plenary Session: International IP and Social Justice
Moderators:
Christine Farley, Professor of Law, American University Washington College of Law & Faculty Director, Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property
Metka Potočnik, Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Wolverhampton, Law School and Director of The F-List for Music CIC
Panelists:
Sara Callegari, Gender and Diversity Specialist, Human Resources Management Department, World Intellectual Property Organization
Leticia Caminero, Consultant, Research and Special Projects, Traditional Knowledge Division, World Intellectual Property Organization
Srividhya Ragavan, Professor of Law and Director of India Programs, Texas A&M University School of Law
12:45 – 1:00 pm CDT
Break
1:00 – 2:15 pm CDT
Paper presentations: Patents and Public Health
Moderator: Sharon Sandeen, Professor of Law and Director of IP Institute, Mitchell Hamline University School of Law
Presenters:
Covid-19, Patent Law, and Inequality in Access to Health Technologies: The Proposed Pandemic Treaty
Muhammad Zaheer Abbas, PhD, Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, UK, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Faculty of Business and Law | Queensland University of Technology
Waiving Windfalls: The Socio-Legal and Contextual justification of a “TRIPS Waiver” during the COVID-19 pandemic
Akshat Agrawal, Law Researcher at the Delhi High Court, India
Patents on Psychedelics: The Next Legal Battlefront of Drug Development
Mason Marks, Assistant Professor, UNH Franklin Pierce School of Law; Senior Fellow and Project Lead of the Project on Psychedelics Regulation (POPLAR), Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School
2:15 – 2:45 pm CDT
The Unleashing American Innovators Act
Scott Wilson, Senior Intellectual Property Advisor Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on IP
2:45 – 3:00 pm CDT
Break
3:00 – 4:15 pm CDT
Plenary Session: Increasing Diversity in Innovation through Paradigm-Shifts, Pledges, and Pilots
Panelists:
Jeremiah Chan – Director and Associate General Counsel, Facebook
Colleen Chien – Santa Clara University School of Law and High Tech Law Institute
Suzanne Harrison – Percipience, USIPA, and The Gathering
Lateef Mtima – Howard University School of Law, IIPSJ
John Mulgrew – Chief Patent Counsel and Global Head of IP, Lenovo
4:15 – 4:25 pm CDT
Break
4:25 – 5:40pm CDT
Paper presentations: Race & IP
Moderator: Kara Swanson, Associate Dean for Research, School of Law, Professor of Law/Affiliate Professor of History, Northeastern University
Presenters:
The Last Breakfast with Aunt Jemima and its Impact on Trademark Theory
Deborah R. Gerhardt, Reef C. Ivey II Excellence Fund Term Professor of Law, UNC School of Law
Solomon Linda, Traditional Knowledge Pirate? Mbube, ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’ and Entry/Exit rules for Traditional Knowledge
Dalindyebo Shabalala, J.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor, University of Dayton School of Law
5:40 – 6:40 pm CDT
HAPPY (& SOCIAL) HOUR ONLINE
Saturday, October 23, 2021
12:00 – 5:00 pm Central Daylight Time (CDT)
12:00 – 12:10 pm CDT
Opening Remarks
Sharon Sandeen, Professor of Law and Director of IP Institute, Mitchell Hamline School of Law
Lateef Mtima, Professor of Law, Howard University School of Law & Founder and Director, IIPSJ
12:10 – 1:25 pm CDT
Plenary Session: IP/IT Law and Policy for Social Progress
Moderator: Lateef Mtima, Professor of Law, Howard University School of Law & Founder and Director, IIPSJ
Panelists:
Copyright as Social Justice for Music Workers
Benjamin Bierman, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Music and Chair, Department of Art & Music John Jay College of Criminal Justice
How Psychedelic Patents Harm Public Health
Mason Marks, Assistant Professor, UNH Franklin Pierce School of Law; Senior Fellow and Project Lead of the Project on Psychedelics Regulation (POPLAR), Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School
Empowering Creatives to Protect Their Interests
Kim Tignor, Executive Director, Institute for Intellectual Property and Social Justice
1:25 – 1:35 pm CDT
Break
1:35 – 3:05 pm CDT
Paper presentations: IP, Access, and Inclusion
Moderator: Betsy Rosenblatt, Professor of Law, The University of Tulsa College of Law
Presenters:
More Than Availability: Thoughtfully Changing Legal Scholarship Accessibility, Equity, and Inclusion Considerations
Raizel Liebler, Faculty Scholarship Librarian & Instructor of Law, The University of Illinois at Chicago School of Law
A Queer Analysis of Intellectual Property
Dr. Eden Sarid, Assistant Professor, University of Essex, School of Law
Leaving the Pink Ghetto: Amplifying Feminist Voices in Intellectual Property Policy
Metka Potočnik, Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Wolverhampton, Law School and Director of The F-List for Music CIC
Role of Intellectual Property in Fortifying the Agricultural Sector: Issues & Prospects
Dr. Vandana Singh, Assistant Professor, University School of Law and Legal Studies (USLLS), GGS Indraprastha University
Serials Crisis, Right to Research and Copyright Law: From Photocopying to Shadow Libraries
Aditya Gupta, Researcher, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, Gujarat INDIA
MP Ram Mohan, Associate Professor, Strategy Area, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, INDIA
3:05 – 3:15 pm CDT
Break
3:15 – 4:30 pm CDT
Paper presentations: Patents and Equity
Moderator: Betsy Rosenblatt, Professor of Law, The University of Tulsa College of Law
Presenters:
Centralizing Pharmaceutical Innovation
Sapna Kumar, John Mixon Chair, Co-Director, UHLC Institute for Intellectual Property & Information Law
Gender and Racial Disparities in Pharmaceutical Patent Prosecution and Litigation
Sean Tu, Professor of Law at West Virginia University College of Law
Sy-STEM-ic Racism: An Exploration of Race and Gender Representation on University Patents
Jordi Goodman, Visiting Clinical Assistant Professor, BU/MIT Technology Law Clinic, Boston University School of Law
4:30 pm CDT
Closing Remarks
Lateef Mtima, Professor of Law, Howard University School of Law & Founder and Director, IIPSJ
Sharon Sandeen, Professor of Law and Director of IP Institute, Mitchell Hamline School of Law
Since 2014, IIPSJ has sponsored the IP Mosaic Conference. Through the IP Mosaic, IIPSJ collaborates with a law school host to provide a venue in which to explore the social ordering function of IP protection in the total political economy, particularly the law’s social justice obligations in promoting human rights and actualization, cultural and technological progress, and self-determination and nation-building.
The IP Mosaic Conference was established to bring together scholars, law and policy makers, and social activists of diverse and multicultural backgrounds and perspectives to explore progressive, social justice-oriented 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. IP law and policy makers traditionally value scholarly analyses in their development and interpretation of IP protection. Progressive, social justice-oriented IP scholarship, especially when infused with the experience and insights of policy makers and social activists, can provide the doctrinal basis for shaping a more socially responsible IP legal regime.
About the IP Mosaic Conference
Each IP Mosaic Conference is typically organized around a specific IP social justice legal issue, policy, or socio-economic challenge. Representative conference themes 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 conference format is principally comprised of paper or project presentation sessions and plenary panel discussions. In addition, keynote presentations and “incubator project” and work in progress sessions are also mainstays of the conference.
The Pragmatic Intersection of Scholarly Analysis and Law and Policy Development
IP protection is intended to play an important role in engendering human development and actualization toward the greater societal good. 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 IP Mosaic Conference, IP scholars engage with social activists, practicing attorneys, 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.
Institutional Partners
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