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: TBA
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?

Call For Papers

The IP Mosaic Conference Planning Board invites IP scholars, policy makers, and social activists to submit paper and project proposals for presentation at the Tenth Annual IP Mosaic Conference, which will be hosted at the Marquette University Law School on November 1-2, 2024.

We welcome papers and projects that specifically address the intersection of intellectual property and social justice and/or ethics, particularly with respect to race, gender, class and other social identities, constructs, and conditions, as well as the social justice effects and obligations of the intellectual property regime, from rewarding originality and innovation, promoting human development and self-actualization to meeting the health, education, and socio-economic empowerment needs of the global society.

Paper and project abstracts (300 words) will be considered on a rolling basis with an initial submission deadline of June 30, 2024; the final deadline for consideration of submissions is August 1, 2024.

Submit to ipmosaic@iipsj.org with subject line “IP Mosaic Submission 2024 — [Last Name].” Please include a statement identifying if you’ve presented at the conference in the past two years. You may also address any questions to the Planning Board at that same email address.

Program Agenda

Dates/Times TBA

Details TBA

Friday, October 27

9:30 – 9:45 am CDT

2:30 – 2:45 pm GMT

Welcome & Remarks

Yolanda M. King, Director & Associate Professor of Law, Center for Intellectual Property, Information & Privacy Law, University of Illinois Chicago School of Law

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

9:45 – 10:50 am CDT

2:45 – 3:50 pm GMT

Plenary Session: International IP and Climate Change 

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

Panelists:

Peter Oksen, World Intellectual Property Organization, Global Challenges Division

Antony Taubman, World Trade Organization, Intellectual Property Division

10:50 – 11:00 am CDT

3:50 – 4:00 pm GMT

Break

11:00 am – 12:35 pm CDT

4:00 – 5:35 pm GMT

Session Materials | Download Here

Paper Presentation Panel 1: IP & Tech

Moderator: Sandra Aistars, Clinical Professor of Law, and Founding Director of the Arts & Entertainment Advocacy Clinic, George Mason University Law School

Presenters:

Blake E ReidCopyright’s First Responder Problem

Betsy Rosenblatt Considering the Role of Fairness In Copyright Fair Use.

– 5 min break –

LantagneAutomating Creative Effort: Free-Riding in an age of Artificial Intelligence

Liza VertinskyPatents, Partnerships and AI Innovation Policy.

12:35 – 1:30 pm CDT

5:35 – 6:30 pm GMT

Meal Break

1:30 – 2:55 pm CDT

6:30 – 7:55 pm GMT

Session Materials | Download Here

Paper Presentation Panel 2: 2023 Ben Liu Scholars

Moderator: Jasmine Abdel-Khalik, University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law

Presenters:
Elizabeth Ivwurie Advancing Intellectual Property Social Justice in the Nigerian Creative Industries: Challenges, Opportunities, and the Path Forward.
Anupriya DhonchakA Feminist Approach to Publicity Rights in India.

–5 min Break —

Kay Dunn Misappropriating Scottish Traditional Knowledge: Empowering Community Ownership Through IP Rights.
Ondrej WoznicaUnraveling the Value Gap: How Property Metaphors Shape Copyright Policy.

2:55 – 3:05 pm CDT

7:55 – 8:05 pm GMT

Break

3:05 – 3:45 pm CDT

8:05 – 8:45 pm GMT

Session Materials | Download Here

Paper Presentation Panel 3: The Role of Patent Law: from Technicalities to Social Correctives?

Moderator: Betsy Rosenblatt, Professor of Law, Case Western Reserve Law School

Panelists:

Sandra L Rierson and Mimi Afshar, HBCU’s Paving the Road to Recovery from Slavery, Jim Crow, and Persistent Racial Disparities in the USPTO.

Jordi Goodman, The Uncultured PHOSITA.

5:00 – 7:00 pm

HAPPY HOUR for in-person attendees

 

Saturday, October 28

9:30 – 9:45 am CDT

2:30 – 2:45 pm GMT

Welcome & Remarks

Yolanda M. King, Director & Associate Professor of Law, Center for Intellectual Property, Information & Privacy Law, University of Illinois Chicago School of Law

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

9:45 – 11:10 am CDT

2:45 – 4:10 pm GMT

Session Materials | Download Here

Paper Presentation Panel 4: IP and Social Action: Ways to Empowerment? 

Moderator: Jasmine Abdel-khalik, Professor, UMKC School of Law

Presenters:

Michael P Goodyear, Queer Trademarks.

Bhamati Viswanathan, Women’s Work.

5 min Break–

Victoria F Phillips, Intellectual Property Clinics—Helping to Empower All Creators.

11:10 – 11:20 am CDT

4:10 – 4:20 pm GMT

Break

11:20 am – 12:35 pm CDT

4:20 – 5:35 pm GMT

Session Materials | Download Here

Plenary Session: Copyright Behind Bars: At the Intersection of Systemic Incarceration and IP Social Justice

Moderator: John R. Whitman, Ph.D., author, Executive Director, Museum for Black Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Panelists:

Jeanie Austin, Ph.D., Librarian, Jail and Reentry Services, San Francisco Public Library

Wendy Jason, Founder and Director, Justice Arts Coalition, nonprofit national network for those creating art in and around the criminal justice system (invited)

Doran Larson, Ph.D, Professor of Literature, Hamilton College and Founder and Co-Director of the American Prison Writing Archive

Viva R. Moffat, Professor of Law, Co-Director, Intellectual Property and Technology Law Program, Sturm College of Law, University of Denver, advocating for IP rights for currently/formerly incarcerated and society

Fury Young, Founder and Co-Executive Director, Die Jim Crow, the first nonprofit record label for currently and formerly incarcerated artists

12:35 – 1:35 pm CDT

5:35 – 6:35 pm GMT

Meal Break

1:35 – 3:45 pm CDT

6:35 – 8:45 pm GMT

Session Materials | Download Here

Paper Presentation Panel 5: Music Creators and Socity: System Reboot or Reform to Building Better Partnerships?

Moderator: Sandra Aistars, Clinical Professor of Law, and Founding Director of the Arts & Entertainment Advocacy Clinic, George Mason University Law School

Presenters:
Meredith Rose Streaming in the Dark: Lessons and Reforms from Behind the NDA Curtain.
Olufunmilayo Arewa, Margaret Chon, and Jacqueline LiptonIncentive to Create or to Exploit? Music Creation and Copyright Abuse.

–5 min Break —

Metka Potočnik Misogyny in Music: a Feminist Reading of Performers’ Rights.
Benjamin BiermanThe Music Business, the Other 99 Percent.

–5 min Break —

Sean O’Connor Copyright as a Matter of Style.
Gilden and Subotnik – Copyright’s Capacity Gap.

3:45 pm CDT

8:45 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, The University of Tulsa, College of Law                                                                         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