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Centre for Commercial Law Studies

Professor Uma Suthersanen, LLB (Hons)[S’pore], LLM [Lond], PhD [Lond], Advocate and Solicitor (Singapore Bar), FRSA

Uma

Professor of Global Intellectual Property Law

Email: u.suthersanen@qmul.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0)20 7882 8081
Room Number: 1.4, Lincoln's Inn Fields

Profile

Professor Suthersanen gained her degrees in law from the National University of Singapore and Queen Mary University of London. She began her academic career at Queen Mary first as the Herchel Smith Research Fellow, followed by the Financial Times Law & Tax Fellowship, before becoming a tenured lecturer in 2001. In 2009, she was conferred a Chair at the Centre for Commercial Law Studies. She was a member for the Law Unit of Assessment (sub-panel 18) for the national Research Excellence Framework, REF 2021.

She now holds a Chair in Global Intellectual Property Law. She has authored and edited the following leading texts in intellectual property law: Copinger & Skone-James on Copyright (Nicholas Caddick K.C., Gwilym Harbottle & Uma Suthersanen, 19th Edition, 2024); and Dutfield & Suthersanen on Global Intellectual Property Law (Graham Dutfield & Uma Suthersanen, 2nd Edition, 2020), and Design Law: European Union and United States (2010). She is also the General Editor of Sweet & Maxwell’s European Copyright and Design Reports. She is currently working on a monograph on Copyright and Public Interest: Comparative and Historical Analyses (Gillian Davies & Uma Suthersanen, 3rd edition).

She sits on the Executive Committee of the British Literary and Artistic Copyright Association (ALAI-UK), having previously been appointed as the first female Chair of ALAI-UK (2006-2010).

Previous posts in Queen Mary included: Director of Queen Mary Intellectual Property Research Institute (2019-2023), Academic Director of the LLM in Intellectual Property Law programme (2012-2021), and Academic Director of the Paris Intellectual Property Law LLM programme (2012-2015). Previous international visiting positions include: WIPO Academy LLM programmes with (i) University of Ankara, Turkey (ii) University of Tongji, China; and (iii) University of Maqsut Narikbayev University, Kazhakstan; WIPO Academy programme with the British Copyright Council & UK Intellectual Property Office; and Overseas Fellow of the Intellectual Property Academy of Singapore.

Professor Suthersanen has served as a consultant and given evidence to international and regional bodies including WIPO, UNESCO, UNCTAD, European Parliament, European Commission, and the Governments of Israel and Singapore. She was invited to sit as a WIPO expert on the Ad hoc Committee on traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions, at the Inter-Governmental Committtee on TKGR (IGC 460), 2023. Uma’s works have been cited by, inter alia, the following organisations and governments: European Commission (Legal review on industrial design protection in Europe, 2016); OECD (The Innovation Policy Platform (IPP) (developed by the World Bank Group/OECD);  Enquiries into intellectual property's economic impact - chapter 6. Design and design frameworks: investment in KBC and economic performance (2015); National Intellectual Property Systems, Innovation  and Economic Development With Perspectives On Colombia And Indonesia, 2014; UNCTAD (Tool Box for Policy Coherence in Access to Medicines and Local Pharmaceutical Production 2017; Development Dimensions of Intellectual Property in Indonesia:Access to Medicines, Transfer of Technology and Competition, 2011; UNCTAD’s Least Developed Countries Report 2007); WIPO (Economic Research Working Paper No. 18, 2014; IGC on I.P. and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore, Note on the Meanings of the Term “Public Domain” in the Intellectual property System, 2010); WTO (Working Paper on Intellectual Property Rights Protection and Export Diversification: the Application of Utility Model Laws, 2014); Australian Government (Productivity Commission’s Report on Intellectual Property Arrangements 2016; IPAustralia Economic Research Paper 05, The economic impact of innovation patents, 2015; Advisory Council on I.P., Review of the Innovation Patent System (Final Report), 2015); Indian Government (Discussion Paper on Utility Models (DIPP, 2011).

Before she decided to stop all that travelling, Uma accepted invitations to give guest lectures at several institutions located in amazing cities including: Nanjing University, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Lisbon; Hochschule für Wirtschaft und Recht Berlin; University of Alicante; Université Robert Schuman, Strasbourg; University of Western Ontario; University of Maastricht; Universidad Nacional de Colombia and Universidad Externado de Colombia, Bogota; Ss. Cyril and Methodius University, North Macedonia; and University of Meiji-Waseda, Tokyo. And in USA: University of Washington, St. Louis; University of Boston; George Washington University, Washington.

She has been interviewed and quoted in various international media including The Telegraph, International Herald Tribune, The Guardian and BBC Radio 4 (Law in Action).

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