Description

This seminar assembles a unique constellation of national and international intellectual property experts who will share their insights on the challenges that the transnational copyright lawyer will face in the 21^st century, and explore issues that are relevant to practitioners, scholars and policymakers. In particular, Jane Ginsburg will be covering the quandaries of the making available right in the United States and Europe. Elizabeth Ng Siew Kuan will navigate the tricky terrain of technological protection measures and geo-blocking, while Liu Kung-Chung will be highlighting significant developments in China and Taiwan. Finally, David Tan will touch on the nebulous doctrine of fair use/fair dealing and its future in the new proposed Singapore’s copyright regime.

 About The Speaker

Jane C. GINSBURG is the Morton L. Janklow Professor of Literary and Artistic Property Law at Columbia University School of Law, and Faculty Director of its Kernochan Center for Law, Media and the Arts.  She teaches Legal Methods, Copyright Law, International Copyright Law, and Trademarks Law, and is the author or co-author of casebooks in all four subjects, as well as of many articles and book chapters on domestic and international copyright and trademark law.  A graduate of the University of Chicago (BA 1976, MA 1977), Professor Ginsburg received a JD in 1980 from Harvard, and, as a Fulbright grantee, a Diplôme d’études approfondies in 1985, and a Doctorate of Law in 1995 from the University of Paris II.  She is a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy, a Member of the American Philosophical Society, a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and an Honorary Fellow of Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge.

Kung-Chung LIU holds a Bachelor of Laws from National Taiwan University and a Doctor of Law degree from the Ludwig Maximilian Universitaet (University of Munich). In 1992, he joined Academia Sinica. In 2003, he was a Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Law of the National University of Singapore and also acted as Visiting Senior Research Fellow for the IP Academy of Singapore. He has served as one of the founding Commissioners of the National Communications Commission in Taiwan. In 2007, he was co-appointed Professor of the Institute of Law for Science and Technology, National Tsing Hua University. In 2010, he was co-appointed Professor of the Graduate Institute of Technology, Innovation & Intellectual Property Management, National Chengchi University. In 2014-15, he was a Visiting Professor at the School of Law, Singapore Management University, and the Founding Director of the Applied Research Centre for Intellectual Assets and the Law in Asia (ARCIALA). He is currently the External Director of ARCIALA.

Elizabeth Siew-Kuan NG is Deputy Chairwoman, Director (IP), Centre for Law & Business; Director, GCIP; Associate Professor of Law, NUS Law School. She pioneered many IP courses including Law of IP, Biotechnology Law etc. She has been appointed amicus curiae by the Singapore Court of Appeal on IP matter and is an IP Adjudicator of IPOS. She holds external appointments in several countries including Hong Kong (China). She graduated with LLB (Honors) (University of London) where she was awarded Sweet & Maxwell Law prize and Faculty of Law prize. She obtained an LLM (First Class) (University of Cambridge, England) on a Cambridge Commonwealth Trust scholarship and was conferred the Clough prize.  A Barrister-at-law of Middle Temple (England); Advocate and Solicitor (Supreme Court, Singapore); Fellow of Cambridge Commonwealth Society (University of Cambridge), she has held visiting appointments e.g. in Germany, China, USA (US Federal Circuit), Switzerland (WIPO HQ).  She has published in England, India, Korea, Switzerland, Thailand, USA etc. and delivered many invited papers at international IP conferences worldwide.

David TAN is Vice Dean (Academic Affairs) at NUS Law and is the first holder of the Dean’s Chair there. He holds PhD, LLB (First Class Hons) and BCom degrees from the University of Melbourne and an LLM from Harvard. David pioneered the courses Entertainment Law and Freedom of Speech at NUS Law. He has been a visiting professor at Hong Kong and Melbourne law schools. His areas of research cover personality rights, copyright, trademarks, freedom of expression and tort law. His law publications have appeared in a wide range of journals that include Yale Journal of International Law, Harvard Journal of Sports & Entertainment Law, Virginia Sports & Entertainment Law Journal, WIPO Journal, Sydney Law Review, and Law Quarterly Review. His forthcoming book on celebrity image rights titled “The Commercial Appropriation of Fame” will be published by Cambridge University Press in 2017.

About The Moderator

Simon SEOW is the Director of the Intellectual Property Policy Division in the Ministry of Law, Singapore.  He is also a Board member of IPOS International Pte Ltd.  He previously held a variety of roles in Patents, Designs, Plant Variety Protection, Strategic Planning, Policy and Legal with IPOS.  His work also included the development of the Singapore Government’s IP management policy and international negotiations.  Prior to joining the public sector, Simon was in legal practice and venture capital investment.  At various times, Simon has been the Vice-Chair of the World Intellectual Property Organization’s (WIPO) Standing Committee on the Law of Patents (SCP), Chair of the ASEAN Patent Examination Cooperation (ASPEC) Task Force, and co-Chair of the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand FTA (AANZFTA) Committee on IP and the EU-ASEAN Project on the Protection of IP Rights (ECAP III) Project Steering Committee.  He has co-authored A Guide to Patent Law in Singapore.

Welcome Address

Irene CALBOLI is Lee Kong Chian Fellow, Visiting Professor, and the Deputy Director of the Applied Research Centre for Intellectual Assets and the Law in Asia (ARCIALA), School of Law, Singapore Management University. Irene started her academic career at the University of Bologna and has held visiting positions at the King’s College London, the University of California Berkeley, the University Complutense, De Paul University, and the Max-Planck-Institute for Innovation and Competition. Most recently, she was a visiting professor at the Faculty of Law of the National University of Singapore. Irene’s scholarship focuses on the intersection between intellectual property and international trade.