MAIN IMAGE-2025 CONFERENCE

HOSTING INSTITUTION - NUS LAW

Established over sixty years ago, the National University of Singapore Faculty of Law (NUS Law) is widely regarded as Asia’s leading law school. It has been consistently ranked amongst the top 20 law schools in the world by Quacquarelli Symonds (#11 in 2022 and #10 in 2021) and the Times Higher Education World University Rankings (#8 in 2022 and #12 in 2021).

Founded in 1956 as the Law Department of the University of Malaya in Singapore, the faculty accepted its first undergraduate cohort in 1957 — including Ambassador-at-large Professor Tommy Koh, Singapore’s former Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong and Emeritus Professor Koh Kheng Lian, who went on to play important roles in shaping Singapore’s laws and legal practices. Over six decades, NUS Law has made a tremendous impact on the study and the practice of law in Singapore.

Despite its humble beginnings, the faculty’s student population has expanded from its pioneer batch of 22 students to an intake of 250 undergraduate students and almost 200 graduate students per year today. These students are taught by over 70 full-time faculty members, as well as adjuncts and visitors, representing most of the major jurisdictions around the world.

To date, NUS Law has produced more than 10,000 law graduates, who have gone on to occupy the senior ranks of the judiciary, government, private practice, business, the arts and media communities as well as almost every niche of professional life in Singapore. Prominent NUS Law alumni include Singapore’s first female President Madam Halimah Yacob ’78, Minister for Law K. Shanmugam ’84, Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon ’86, actor and playwright Ivan Heng ’88, co-founder and CEO of Razer Inc, Tan Min-Liang ’02, and fashion designer Priscilla Shunmugam ’06.

NUS Law is dedicated to building a vibrant community and creating an environment that facilitates critical thinking and reflection on the fundamental legal issues confronting our interconnected world. It houses the following research centres:

-         Asian Law Institute

-         Asia-Pacific Centre for Environmental Law

-         Centre for Asian Legal Studies

-         Centre for Banking & Finance Law

-         Centre for Maritime Law

-         Centre for Legal Theory

-         Centre for Technology, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence & the Law

-         EW Barker Centre for Law & Business

EW BARKER CENTRE FOR LAW & BUSINESS


A successor institution to the former Centre for Commercial Law Studies (CCLS), the EW Barker Centre for Law & Business seeks to enhance and promote research and educational opportunities for faculty, students, legal practitioners and business executives who share a common interest in the fields of Law, Business and Economics. These opportunities will be encouraged through the Centre's work and sponsorship of seminars, conferences and research endeavours. The EW Barker Centre for Law & Business will also engage in appropriate research projects commissioned by industry from time to time.

The vision of EWBCLB is to be the leading law centre in Asia in the field of Law and Business, and one of the leading research institutions in this field globally. It will seek to do this through inter-disciplinary work that has a strong comparative law focus, which includes examining the extent to which legal convergence is taking place in a globalized and interconnected world.

Areas of interest include:

  • Bankruptcy law and insolvency law
  • Business Organizations: Companies, General Partnerships, LLPs, LPs, Business Trusts, etc
  • Competition Law and Policy, and Mergers and Acquisitions
  • Intellectual Property and Information Technology Law and Policy
  • International Business, and International Commercial Litigation
  • Private law
  • Taxation: Legal, Regulatory, and Accounting

KERNOCHAN CENTER

The Kernochan Center for Law, Media and the Arts was established to contribute to a broader understanding of the legal aspects of creative works of authorship, including their dissemination and use.

The center has encouraged the development of instruction at the Law School in topics such as intellectual property, copyright, trademarks, the regulation of electronic media, and problems arising from new communications technologies.

In addition to basic courses covering various aspects of intellectual property, there are special seminars in intellectual property contracts, law and the music industry, law and the visual arts, law and the theatre, computer law, sports law, and international aspects of intellectual property, as well as an Externship in Law and the Arts. The center also works with other divisions of the University, such as the School of the Arts and the Columbia School of Journalism, in seminars on topics in areas of mutual interest.

The Columbia Journal of Law & the Arts is devoted to informing the public about legal issues that relate to arts, entertainment, media, and new technologies.

OXFORD INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RESEARCH OFFICE

The OIPRC is the focus of intellectual property research at the university, not just in area of law but in other fields including economics and public policy.

The Centre organises a termly Invited Speaker Series and the annual International Intellectual Property Moot.  The Centre also hosts a number of academic visitors and research students annually.  Members of the Centre have developed enduring and collaborative relationships with leading intellectual property practitioners through the Postgraduate Diploma in Intellectual Property Law and Practice and now with the new MSc in Intellectual Property. The Diploma is a part-time vocational programme offered by the Law Faculty in collaboration between the University and the Intellectual Property Lawyer’s Association.

The OIPRC was established in 1990 at St Peter's College by Faculty member Peter Hayward, with an initial gift from the Hitachi Foundation and moved from St Peter’s College to the Faculty of Law in 2008.

TSINGHUA UNIVERSITY CENTER FOR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

The Tsinghua University Center for Intellectual Property was established in 2001. The research center is dedicated to policy innovation of intellectual property protection, and set our goal of providing the impetus in the promotion of IP system.

Having its base in Tsinghua Law School, the research center assembled a most competent research team, with high-level theoretical and practical ability with its members coming from prestigious universities, research institutes and companies.

The research center focus is in research, teaching, academic exchange and social participation, with the expectation to have influence in promoting China’s intellectual property protection. The research program will be determined in considering the industry concerns and the international developing trend of IPR. They also carry out extensive academic exchanges and organise international conferences.

CENTRE FOR TECHNOLOGY, ROBOTICS, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE & THE LAW

The Centre for Technology, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence & the Law (TRAIL) was established in NUS Law to explore the relationship between technology and the various areas of legal research.

TRAIL's focus is to inform the debate on the legal, ethical, policy, philosophical and regulatory questions associated with the use and development of information technology (IT), artificial intelligence (AI), data analytics and robotics, in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, through contributions by way of original thinking, research, writing and publications; and to collaborate with like-minded research centres around the world to further inter-disciplinary research in, and the development of, possible guidelines, standards, and solutions to the legal, ethical, policy, philosophical and regulatory issues associated with the development and application of IT, AI, data analytics and robotics in key industries.

TRAIL was officially launched by Mr Edwin Tong, Senior Minister of State, Ministry for Law and Ministry for Health, at the 8th Asian Privacy Scholars Network (APSN) Conference on 5 December 2019.

WORLD INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ORGANIZATION (WIPO)

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is the United Nations agency that serves the world’s innovators and creators, ensuring that their ideas travel safely to the market and improve lives everywhere.

We do so by providing services that enable creators, innovators and entrepreneurs to protect and promote their intellectual property (IP) across borders and acting as a forum for addressing cutting-edge IP issues. Our IP data and information guide decisionmakers the world over. And our impact-driven projects and technical assistance ensure IP benefits everyone, everywhere.

CONFERENCE CONVENOR

PROFESSOR DAVID TAN
Head (Intellectual Property), EW Barker Centre for Law & Business
Co-Director, Centre for Technology, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence & the Law
Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore (“NUS Law”)

Professor David Tan was Vice Dean (Academic Affairs) from January 2015 to June 2021 at NUS Law where he oversaw the undergraduate and graduate coursework curriculum, and was the first to be appointed to the Dean’s Chair there. He is presently the Head of Intellectual Property research at the EW Barker Centre for Law & Business. In addition, he is an outstanding educator, having won the faculty-level teaching excellence award twice. He has been a visitor at Melbourne Law School and the University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law teaching courses in intellectual property, as well as at the University of Tokyo (Todai) where he taught tort law.

David holds Ph.D., LL.B. (First Class Honours) and B.Com. degrees from the University of Melbourne and an LL.M. from Harvard. He joined NUS Law as an Assistant Professor in 2008, after a career spanning over a decade in the private and public sector.

At NUS Law, David pioneered courses in Entertainment 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 regularly cited by the Supreme Court of Singapore. His scholarship is primarily characterised by an interdisciplinary approach to intellectual property drawing on cultural studies and semiotics. He is presently on the Advisory Board for the Max Planck Encyclopedia of Comparative Constitutional Law and is an advisor to the Publications Committee of the Law Society of Singapore.

His law publications have appeared in a wide range of journals that include Yale Journal of International Law, Harvard Journal of Sports & Entertainment Law, Law Quarterly Review, Sydney Law Review, Singapore Journal of Legal Studies, Media & Arts Law Review and International Journal for the Semiotics of Law. His well-received monograph, The Commercial Appropriation of Fame: A Cultural Analysis of the Right of Publicity and Passing Off, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2017.

Email: david.tan@nus.edu.sg
Phone: +65 6516 6781
Address: NUS Law, 469G Bukit Timah Road, Eu Tong Sen Building, Singapore 259776, SINGAPORE

SECRETARIAT

Elicia Chia
Ifraim Sofian Faylasuf