Annual Mosaic IP Law and Policy Roundtable Conference

Mosaic IP Law and Policy Roundtable Conference

 

The Mosaic IP Law and Policy Roundtable connects IP scholars 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.

Program News & Updates

3/19/2024 – Thank you to all who joined us for the 2023 Mosaic Conference! Missed us? Check out the event recap blog here.

2024 Conference Details

Co-hosted by Marquette University Law School

Date: November 1-2, 2024
Time: 9:30 am – 3 pm CDT + Happy Hour
Location: Milwaukee, WI
Theme: Looking Forward, Looking Back: IP Social Justice & Promoting Human Ingenuity

About the 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.

Co-hosted by Marquette University Law School

2024 Theme | Looking Forward, Looking Back: IP Social Justice & Promoting Human Ingenuity

The IP Mosaic Conference is a unique convening of a diverse collective of academic scholars, policy leaders, and activists who meet to consider and critique IP protection. As we look back on 10 years of the IP Mosaic Conference and revisit the place where it all began, we reflect on the progress we’ve made in the last decade and consider where we go from here. One major evolution in IP law and policy is that the social justice obligations and effects of the IP regime are not questioned and this fundamental principle is now part of the prevailing scholarly and political discourse. In this Tenth Anniversary convening of IP Mosaic we will endeavor to consider what else has changed over the past decade? What remains the same? Has the way we think about humanity and creativity, and how IP protection can serve to foster human actualization towards society’s ultimate benefit changed? And what does progress look like moving forward?

Program Agenda

Friday, November 1

9:30 – 9:45 am CDT

2:30 – 2:45 pm GMT

Welcome & Remarks

Joseph D. Kearney, Dean and Professor of Law, Marquette University Law School

9:45 – 10:50 am CDT

2:45 – 3:50 pm GMT

Plenary Session: The New WIPO Treaty on Intellectual Property, Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge: Origins, Context and Significance

Moderator: Metka Potočnik, Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Wolverhampton, Law School and Director of The F-List for Music CIC

Panelist:

Wend Wendland, Director, Traditional Knowledge Division, World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Cape Town

The New WIPO Treaty 25 Years in the Making: What Does It Mean and What Happens Next?

10:50 – 11:00 am CDT

3:50 – 4:00 pm GMT

Break

11:00 am – 12:00 pm CDT

4:00 – 5:00 pm GMT

Paper Presentation Panel 1: Creation, Access, and Dignity

Moderator: Kara Swanson, Professor of Law/Affiliate Professor of History, Northeastern University

Presenters:

Michael GoodyearDignity and Deepfakes

Arunima Shastri and Himika BatraMaking Intellectual Property Greener: Aligning India’s Patent Regime with Environmental Sustainability through Eco-Patents

Cynthia Dahl and Vicki PhillipsLooking Forward: Data from IP Law Clinics on Their Role in Increasing Access to Justice (invited)

12:00 – 1:00 pm CDT

5:00 – 6:00 pm GMT

Meal Break

1:00 – 2:00 pm CDT

6:00 – 7:00 pm GMT

Paper Presentation Panel 2: Creation and Identity

Moderator: Betsy Rosenblatt, Professor of Law, Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development, Case Western Reserve University Law School

Presenters:

Tim McFarlinState-Law Authorship

Sakshi SharmaThe Scarlett Letter (of Infringement) (invited)

Sarah (Fackrell) BursteinOrnamentality and Crime

2:00 – 2:10 pm CDT

7:00 – 7:10 pm GMT

Break

2:10 – 3:15 pm CDT

7:10 – 8:15 pm GMT

Plenary Session: From Accommodating AI to Achieving Inclusivity: Opportunities for Contemporary IP Policy

Moderator: Lateef Mtima, Professor of Law, Howard University School of Law & Founder and Director, Institute for Intellectual Property and Social Justice (IIPSJ)

Panelists:

Tony Sebro, Change.org

Meredith Rose, Public Knowledge

Derris Banks, United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)

3:15 – 3:25 pm CDT

8:15 – 8:25 pm GMT

Break

3:25 – 4:25 pm CDT

8:25 – 9:25 pm GMT

Paper Presentation Panel 3: Traditional Knowledge and Social Justice

Moderator: Kali Murray, Marquette University Law School

Presenters:

Dalindyebo ShabalalaTaking Customary Law Seriously: Domestic Recognition of Traditional Knowledge

Kay DunnEmpirical research for social justice in intellectual property and cultural creativity

5:00 – 7:00 pm CDT

HAPPY HOUR for in-person attendees

 

Saturday, November 2

9:30 – 9:45 am CDT

2:30 – 2:45 pm GMT

Welcome & Remarks

Lateef Mtima, Professor of Law, Howard University School of Law & Founder and Director, Institute for Intellectual Property and Social Justice (IIPSJ)

9:45 – 11:15 am CDT

2:45 – 4:15 pm GMT

Paper Presentation Panel 4: Student IP Scholars Roundtable

Moderator: Tuneen Chisolm, Associate Professor of Law, Howard University School of Law

Presenters:

Samantha Lai, J.D. Candidate 2025, UNLV William S. Boyd School of Law
Expanding Creative Horizons: Fair Use of Celebrity Portraiture
Commentator: Betsy Rosenblatt, Professor of Law, Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development, Case Western Reserve University Law School

Usayd Siddiqi, J.D. Candidate 2025, Emory University School of Law
Butter Chicken to Big Data: Preventing Excessive Protection in Sui Generis Regimes
Commentator: Metka Potočnik, Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Wolverhampton, Law School and Director of The F-List for Music CIC

Christelle Tchaou, J.D. 2024, Howard University School of Law
Systemic Solutions for Systemic Racism: Proposing an Equitable Fair Use Defense to Patent Infringement as a Part of Reparations to Historically Underserved Communities
Commentator: Kali Murray, Professor of Law, Marquette University Law School

11:15 – 11:25 am CDT

4:15 – 4:25 pm GMT

Break

11:25 am – 12:30 pm CDT

4:25 – 5:30 pm GMT

Paper Presentation 5: TBD

Moderator: Lateef Mtima, Professor of Law, Howard University School of Law & Founder and Director, Institute for Intellectual Property and Social Justice (IIPSJ)

Presenters:

Thomas Doty Generative AI Bias Accelerates Technological Cultural Divergence

Betsy Rosenblatt  – Social Justice implications in Schedule A trademark litigation

Bhamati Viswanathan – Feminist IP: A Comparative Approach

12:30 – 1:30 pm CDT

5:30 – 6:30 pm GMT

Meal Break

1:30 – 2:55 pm CDT

6:30 – 7:55 pm GMT

Paper Presentation Panel 6: Intellectual Property Theory and Social Justice

Moderator: Kali Murray, Marquette University Law School

Presenters:

Eden Howard (Wednesday Eden)The ‘Unpropertizable’ Public Domain in UK and EU Copyright Law

Metka Potočnik Humanity of Songs

— 5 min Break —

Justin KooDe-Colonizing Copyright Law

Akshat AgarwalEnabling Creative Production

2:55 pm CDT

7:55 pm GMT

Closing Remarks

Lateef Mtima, Professor of Law, Howard University School of Law & Founder and Director, Institute for Intellectual Property and Social Justice (IIPSJ)

 


Thank you to our Conference Planning Committee!

Conference Planning Committee

Jasmine Abdel-Khalik, University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law                                                 Kali Murray, Marquette University Law School   

Tuneen Chisolm, Howard University School of Law                                                                                  Metka Potocnik, University of Wolverhampton, Law School 

Betsy Rosenblatt, Case Western Reserve University Law School                                                               Jack Lerner, UC Irvine School of Law

Lateef Mtima, Howard University School of Law                                                                                       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.

IIPSJ Institutional Partners


mosaic ip conference purple banner

Leading IP Discourse

Leading IP Discourse 

Becoming the central hub for thought-provoking intellectual property law dialogue between industry partners, practicing professionals and mission aligned allies

IIPSJ’s programming such as the Annual MOSAIC conference and our International work forms connections between practicing lawyers, educators, students, corporations, and nonprofits in addition to frequently held online learning workshops

Annual MOSAIC Conference

The IP Mosaic Conference is a unique convening of a diverse collective of academics, policy leaders and activists who meet to consider and critique IP protection

Learn More

IIPSJ International

To date, IIPSJ has conducted CLE and other collaborations with colleges and universities in the Caribbean and South Africa.

Our Foreign Scholar Residency Program exposes participants to US practices that inform their professional work.

Learn More

Open Access Video Library

Catch the full slate IIPSJ programming including past events such as the Social Justice CLE and HBCU Tech Law Summit, all streamable from our YouTube video library below

Find More