The 10th Oxford Intellectual Property Moot Team

In March 2012, the NUS team of Chua Xinying ’13, Lee Huiyi ’12 and Tee Su Mien ’12, coached by Associate Professor Eleanor Wong, advanced to the semi-finals in the 10th Oxford Intellectual Property Moot, at Oxford, UK. Huiyi snagged the coveted Best Individual Speaker prize (the only accolade NUS had not previously won in this competition, having already taken the champions and best memorial prizes in past years). But the real story was the amazingly close competition between the top four teams (in alphabetical order: NUS, Oxford, Ottawa and eventual winners Queensland University of Technology).

In the course of the tournament, Ottawa had beaten QUT and drawn with NUS. Finalist Oxford downed Ottawa in their semi-finals, only to succumb to QUT in a scintillating final, where the real winners might well have been the brilliantly witty panel led by Lord Mummery, flanked by Lord Kitchin and Mr. Justice Floyd. Add to this a quarterfinal between NUS and Oxford that was so close and high-scoring that both teams advanced to the semi’s on the basis of scores, and you get a sense of how nail-bitingly slim the margins were between these teams, any one of which could have easily emerged champion.

The NUS team was especially tested this round, meeting all three of the other semi-finalists at one point or another. The number of times thin whiskers were evoked by the panels to describe the results in those match-ups must have set the feline population in St. Catherine’s on edge.

In the event, we can be extremely proud of how the team performed. Principal oralists Xinying and Huiyi were praised consistently throughout the competition for manner and substance alike. And Su Mien’s valuable sparring plus Über research skills kept the speakers sharp all the way.