Time: 12:00am - 2:00pm Venue: Senior Common Room (3rd Floor), Queen Mary, University of London, 67-69 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London WC2A 3JB
QMIPRI and Queen Mary Journal of Intellectual Property present the QMJIP Seminars 2013, lunchtime lectures and discussions with the QMJIP Advisory Board.
Speaker
Professor Susy Frankel, Victoria University of Wellington, NZ
Interpreting the TRIPs Agreement - Plain Packaging, Public Health and Patents
The on-going dispute over plain packaging of tobacco products puts the spotlight not only on the particular trade mark related issues, but also on how the TRIPs Agreement and other key multilateral IP agreements (Berne and Paris) should be interpreted. The approach to interpretation is not only a single dispute issue, but ha systemic implications for IP disputes and, more broadly IP rule-making. Rules of international treaty interpretation are not new, but their impacts in IP are relatively new.
The use of interpretation tools is about much more than resolving disputes. The tools of interpretation impact on approaches to policy-making and legislative change, as well as interpretation before courts and tribunals.
This seminar will discuss interpretation issues using examples from the plain packaging and patents and public health issues to discuss methods of interpretation of the TRIPs Agreement.
Professor Susy Frankel, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
Susy is Professor and Director of the New Zealand Centre of International Economic Law. She is also Chair of the Copyright Tribunal (NZ). Susy qualified as Barrister and Solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand in 1988 and as a Solicitor of England and Wales in 1991. She has been a visiting Professor at the University of Western Ontario and the University of Iowa and Fellow of Clare Hall and visitor to the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law, University of Cambridge. She is a member of the Executive Committee of the Association for the Advancement of Teaching and Research in Intellectual Property (ATRIP) and of the editorial boards of the Journal of World Intellectual Property, the Queen Mary Journal of Intellectual Property and the University of Western Australia Law Review. She has previously been a Hearing Officer for the Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand, 1998-2006. She has published widely on the nexus between international intellectual property and trade law.
This event is free and open to the public. No RSVP is necessary. CPD registered