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 TBA

Date: TBA
Time: TBA
Location: TBA
Theme: TBA

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 TBA

2023 Theme | IP Rights and Wrongs: Advancing Social Justice and Ethics

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. IP rights should advance social justice and ethical practices. However, when rights are abused or infringed they can also foster IP wrongs. As we encounter technologies like generative AI in our daily lives it is crucial that we evaluate how our IP laws can keep pace, to protect not only creators and innovators, but consumers and the public. What social justice impacts should we be interested in when considering businesses like data aggregators and miners, producers and distributors in the global information age? How should we understand privacy issues in relation to IP? And should any ethical norms govern competition between corporations or impact scientific investigation and discovery?

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   

Sandra Aistars, George Mason University Law School                                                                              Janewa Osei-Tutu, Florida International University

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

Yolanda King University of Illinois Chicago Law                                                                                       Betsy Rosenblatt, The University of Tulsa, College 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