Global Congress on Public Interest Intellectual Property Law

[Michel Bauwens]

Via Becky Lenz:

 

Global Congress on Public Interest Intellectual Property Law
SAVE THE DATE: August 25-27, 2011
American University Washington College of Law
4801 Massachusetts Ave, NW
Washington DC, 20016

Please mark your calendars and plan to participate in one of the most
important meetings on international intellectual property law of the year.

American University Washington College of Law (WCL) will host the first
annual Global Congress on Public Interest Intellectual Property August
25-27, 2011. The Global Congress will be co-hosted by WCL¹s Program on
Information Justice and Intellectual Property, Fundação Getulio Vargas¹s
Center for Technology and Society (Brazil), the American Assembly at
Columbia University, the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable
Development (Geneva), and the Institute for Global and International Studies
at George Washington University.

The Global Congress on Public Interest Intellectual Property is being
created as an alternative forum to the annual industry-organized Global
Congress Against Counterfeiting and Piracy, which was one of the main
incubators for the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) and other
components of the ongoing enforcement agenda in international intellectual
property law. The enforcement agenda has come under increasing scrutiny from
public interest advocates and independent researchers, including through the
recently released Media Piracy in Emerging Economies report
http://piracy.ssrc.org/the-report/. Taking these research and advocacy
interventions as a starting point, the Global Congress on Public Interest
Intellectual Property will serve as a site for the sharing of research,
ideas and policy proposals for how international intellectual property law
should be constructed to better protect the full range of global public
interest concerns.

The tentative schedule is as follows:

August 25, 3-6pm
Keynote Addresses: Framing the Current Moment
Keynote addresses will be webcast live and will be followed by a gala
welcoming reception.

August 25, 9am-6pm
Public Interest Intellectual Property Workshops: Building the Knowledge Base
The day will feature a series of works-in-progress research presentations on
the themes of promoting new thinking on international intellectual property
enforcement and mapping a range of best practices and policy options to
ensure that national and international intellectual property systems protect
and serve a broad range of public interest concerns. In addition to
contributions analyzing options from within intellectual property doctrine,
contributions will be sought from parallel fields that constrain
intellectual property abuses such as competition law, consumer protection
law, price control regimes, etc.

August 25, 7-10pm
Dinner cruise on the Potomac river.

August 26, 10am-3pm
Congress Deliberations: Creating a Positive Agenda for International
Intellectual Property Law

Congress delegates will be invited to deliberate over policy proposals and
action plans that chart a positive future for international intellectual
property law.

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION
Participation in the Global Congress is being recruited from scholars,
policy advocates and public officials from across the globe, with a
particular emphasis on the representatives of interests from developing
countries.

Presentations and papers are being sought on any topic relevant to the
mapping and analyzing of new thinking on intellectual property enforcement
and the consideration of positive proposals that respond to the
developmental and other public interest challenges associated with the
globalization of intellectual property and the rising enforcement agenda.

TRAVEL SCHOLARSHIPS

Through the generous support of financial sponsors of the Congress, to
include the International Development Research Centre, Open Society
Foundation and Google Inc., a limited number of partial and full travel
scholarships will be available for selected participants accepted to
contribute research papers at the Congress. As funding is limited, travel
scholarships will be awarded with preferences for applicants who lack
sufficient institutional funding to otherwise participate and with
preferences for applicants from developing countries and those who raise
contributing funds from other sources.
Priority applications to be considered for travel funding are due July 1,
2011. The final date for submission of proposals to present research at the
Congress will be due July 15, 2011. Registration for self-funded attendees
not presenting research will remain open until approximately three weeks
before the event or until the maximum number of participants is reached
(approx. 100 delegates max).

APPLICATION SITE
All applications will be accepted via an online form that will be available
at http://infojustice.org/global-congress by April 15, 2011.

Questions and inquiries can be addressed to [e-mail] and
[e-mail]. Early expressions of interest in presenting
research at the Congress are welcomed to the above email addresses.

PUBLICATION OPPORTUNITIES
Finalized papers will be considered for publication in the PIJIP digital
commons working paper series
(http://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/research/) in the fall of 2011 as
well as for a symposium issue of a law review in winter, 2012, TBA.


Sean M Fiil Flynn
Associate Director
Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property
American University Washington College of Law
Washington D.C. 20016