PANELLISTS
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David Tan was Vice Dean (Academic Affairs) at NUS Law from January 2015 to June 2021, and Director (Communications) at NUS Law from 2013 to 2019. He holds a PhD from Melbourne Law School (2010), a LLM from Harvard (1999), and graduated with a LLB (First Class Honours)/BCom from the University of Melbourne (1995). He has taught courses at Melbourne Law School (Intellectual Property & Popular Culture; Constitutional Law) and University of Hong Kong, Faculty of Law (Entertainment Law). He had also been a Visiting Affiliate Scholar at the Engelberg Center on Innovation Law & Policy at the NYU School of Law. David was formerly with the Singapore Administrative Service, serving as Director of Sports at Ministry of Community Development, Youth & Sports and Director of International Talent at Ministry of Manpower. He has also had work experience at McKinsey & Company and DBS Bank.
At NUS Law, David pioneered courses in Entertainment Law, Fashion Law, Freedom of Speech, and Privacy & Data Protection Law. His areas of research cover personality rights, copyright, trademarks, freedom of expression, constitutional law and tort law, and his articles have been cited on a number of occasions by the Singapore Court of Appeal and High Court.
David has published over 100 articles, comments, book chapters and review essays since joining NUS Law in 2008. In the area of law, he has published in a diverse range of journals such as the Harvard Journal of Sports & Entertainment Law, Yale Journal of International Law, Sydney Law Review, Law Quarterly Review, Law & Literature, International Journal for the Semiotics of Law, Media & Arts Law Review, Singapore Journal of Legal Studies, Torts Law Journal and Australian Intellectual Property Journal. His monograph — The Commercial Appropriation of Fame: A Cultural Analysis of the Right of Publicity & Passing Off — on celebrity personality rights was published by Cambridge University Press in hardback in 2017, and in paperback in 2018: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_27X6UaExZQ&feature=youtu.be
David is also an accomplished fine art and fashion photographer having published a coffeetable book Visions of Beauty in association with Versace, and Tainted Perfection in collaboration with Cartier in Singapore, and has had over half a dozen solo exhibitions. His works have appeared in Vanity Fair, Harper’s Bazaar, Marie Claire, Time and The New Yorker.
Fady JG Aoun BEc (Hons)/LLB (Hons) Phd (Syd) works as a Senior Lecturer in Law at The University of Sydney Law School and is admitted to practice in NSW. His research and teaching interests are mainly in intellectual property, corporations law, and legal history. Fady's main research interests lay in the interface of race and intellectual property, particularly stigmatising trade marks. A representative publication emerging from his doctoral research is ‘WHITEWASHING AUSTRALIA’S HISTORY OF STIGMATISING TRADE MARKS AND COMMERCIAL IMAGERY’ (2009) 44(3) Melbourne University Law Review 671 for which he was awarded the best Article in the 2020 Australian Legal Research Awards (ECR).
Emily returned to the University of Oxford in September 2023, having previously held posts at the University of Queensland (2009-2012), University of Oxford (2012-2015) and King’s College London (2015-2023). I completed undergraduate degrees in law and science at the University of Melbourne, including spending an Honours year in the Department of Genetics. After graduating, I was a solicitor at Minter Ellison before returning to the Melbourne Law School as a research fellow and, subsequently, doctoral candidate. My thesis won the Law School’s Harold Luntz Graduate Research Thesis Prize (2012) and the university-wide Chancellor’s Prize for Excellence in the PhD Thesis (2013)
My research spans many areas, including intellectual property, personal property, trusts, and law as it relates to cultural institutions and the creative industries. I have a particular interest in interrogating the ‘law in action’: that is, law as understood by everyday actors. This reflects the idea that law has multiple audiences, only some of which are legal experts (judges, lawyers and the like). How do 'regular folk' understand and engage with the law? In exploring these questions, I have used empirical research techniques and have drawn from more recent iterations of law and economics, being scholarship informed by psychologists, behavioural economists and others who have challenged and built on the insights of the Chicago school and its legal offshoots.
My longstanding work with the cultural institution sector is showcased in my monograph, Drafting Copyright Exceptions: From the Law in Books to the Law in Action, published by Cambridge University Press in 2020. I have also published extensively in relation to copyright exceptions, including the pastiche exception (especially in my Intellectual Property Quarterly article from 2017) and exceptions for research and education.
In the 2024-25 academic year, I will be leading the copyright aspects of the FHS option, Copyright, Trade Marks & Allied Rights. I will also be convening the BCL/MJur half option, Incentivising Aesthetic Progress: IP, Art and Design, and contributing to the other IP half-options.
I have long been a supporter of mooting as part of legal education, and am Director of the Oxford International Intellectual Property Moot.
Joshua Yuvaraj is a senior lecturer in law at the University of Auckland, and Co-Director of the New Zealand Centre for Intellectual Property. He also teaches copyright and design courses at Melbourne Law School, the University of Melbourne, and is an Academic Fellow of the Centre for Technology, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence and the Law (TRAIL) at the National University of Singapore. Joshua’s research focuses on copyright law and emerging technologies, alongside broader questions in private law.
Graeme Austin is Chair of Private Law at Victoria University of Wellington and a Professor at Melbourne University Law School. Prior to returning to Australasia, he was the J Byron McCormick Professor of Law at the University of Arizona. He has served as a Member of the New Zealand Copyright Tribunal and as an independent director of the Australian Copyright Council. He is an elected member of the American Law institute and has written extensively on copyright, trademarks, and the relationship between human rights law and intellectual property.
David O. Carson began practicing copyright law in 1981, first as a copyright and media law litigator in private practice in Los Angeles and then in New York. Since then, he has had over twenty-five years of government service as General Counsel of the U.S. Copyright Office, Associate Register for Policy and International Affairs at the Copyright Office, head of the Copyright Policy Team in the Office of Policy and International Affairs at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and, since 2021, as a member of the Copyright Claims Board (CCB) at the Copyright Office. He also had a two-year stint as Executive Vice President for Global Legal Policy at the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. A graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Law School, he has served as a trustee of the Copyright Society of the USA and on the board of directors of the American Intellectual Property Law Association.
Joseph Lau is a PhD candidate at the Melbourne Law School (MLS). He also holds appointments as a Sheridan Fellow at the Faculty of Law of the National University of Singapore (NUS), as an Academic Fellow at the Centre for Technology, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence and the Law (at the same institution) and as a Member of the NUS Artificial Intelligence Institute. His research interests lie in the fields of copyright and patent law and his work in these areas has been published in leading international journals like the Computer Law & Security Review, the Australian Intellectual Property Journal and Intellectual Property Quarterly. Prior to commencing his doctoral research at MLS, Joseph taught tort law at the NUS Faculty of Law for over three years. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Jurisprudence from the University of Oxford and a Master of Laws (Intellectual Property and Technology Law) from NUS.
Maxence Rivoire is a Lecturer at The Dickson Poon School of Law, King’s College London, where he is also the Acting Director of the LLB in English Law and Master 1 in French Law. Prior to becoming an academic, he was an arbitration lawyer at Freshfields in Paris. His research mainly focuses on arbitration, intellectual property, and private international law, with a strong emphasis on the comparative aspects of these disciplines.
Kristelia García is the Leo George Professor of Communications, Entertainment, and New Media, and an Anne Fleming Research Professor, at Georgetown Law. She holds a JD from Yale Law School, and a BA in Economics from Columbia University. García’s academic work focuses on intellectual property law through the lens of law and economics.
Caleb Goh is the Representative of the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center in Singapore, where he promotes WIPO’s ADR services across the ASEAN region, administers cases, and develops tailored dispute resolution policies. Prior to joining WIPO, he was appointed a Young IP Mediator by the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore. He has spoken on WIPO ADR at events hosted by the ASEAN Secretariat, regional IP offices, and dispute resolution bodies. Caleb holds an LLB from the National University of Singapore and is admitted to the Singapore Bar.
Gabriel Ong is Principal Legal Counsel and Principal Assistant Registrar at IPOS’ Hearings and Mediation Department. He is also involved in policy work aimed at strengthening Singapore’s status as an IP and tech dispute hub under the Singapore IP Strategy 2030. Gabriel is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at NUS Law where he co-teaches Intellectual Property Arbitration. He frequently speaks at conferences and seminars on topics related to IP dispute resolution. Previously, he specialized in IP litigation at Drew & Napier LLC, appearing before the Court of Appeal in landmark cases.