IP Provocations Melbourne Law School

In the season one finale of IP Provocations, we’re joined by barrister Amy Surkis to reflect on the series and ponder what we’ve learned. Amy is an expert IP barrister and was our stellar research assistant this season. We chat about what has surprised us and stuck with us from across the series. In particular, we unpack the interplay between patent systems, and broader socio-economic systems, and the extent to which patent laws replicate existing inequalities. How does the patent system act as a feedback loop, rewarding wealth and privilege with more wealth and privilege? And what can we do about it?

Thank-you so much for joining us on this exploration! We hope to see you for a second season in which we delve into even more provocative questions around IP and data. 

IP Provocations is hosted by the Melbourne Law School’s Professor Rebecca Giblin, and the University of Sydney’s Professor Kimberlee Weatherall. You can read more about Giblin’s work here, and Weatherall’s work here. This episode’s guest is:

Amy Surkis is a barrister and IP Provocations’ research assistant. She is a general commercial litigator with a scientific background and over 10 years’ experience. Amy has particular expertise in intellectual property litigation and has extensive experience leading complex patent litigation matters in the Federal Court of Australia, both at first instance and appeal. She has recently been recognised as a Rising Star in Intellectual property by Doyles (2022) and Managing IP (2019). Read more about Amy at her Victorian Bar profile.

IP Provocations is made with the support of IP Australia - we’re grateful to have had the opportunity to ask such broad ranging questions about the patent system to such interesting people, and get so many surprising answers. The IP Provocations team had full academic freedom in designing these conversations, and the views expressed are those of the individual speakers. 

This podcast was a project of IPRIA, the Intellectual Property Research Institute of Australia, and had additional support from Melbourne Law School and Sydney Law School. The music was composed and recorded by Nina Buchanan. The hosts are Professors Rebecca Giblin and Kimberlee Weatherall, and research support was provided by barrister Amy Surkis. The producer is Greta Robenstone. Anders Furze filled in all the remaining gaps.  

IP Provocations acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the lands on which this podcast was produced, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung People of the Kulin Nation, and the Gadigal people of the Eora nation. We pay our respects to their Elders, past and present. This podcast was produced on stolen land - sovereignty was never ceded. Always was, always will be, Aboriginal land.

In this very special episode of IP Provocations, Rebecca and Kim talk to Larissa Behrendt about First Nations innovation - and what we can learn from the people who lived sustainably in the land now known as Australia for over 65,000 years. 

Drawing upon the themes of Behrendt’s new documentary series The First Inventors, Behrendt speaks about how First Nations’ technologies can tackle climate change, and how Indigenous storytelling, governance and kinship systems are integral to First Nations innovation. She talks about First Nations invention as an entire system of cultural knowledges and understandings sitting outside the Western IP system, and how The First Inventors highlights best practice, Indigenous-led research collaboration.

We also raise the story of David Unaipon’s extraordinary inventiveness. A Ngarrindjeri man of the Coorong region, Unaipon invented a dazzling array of technologies in the early 20th century. He came up with the idea for a vertical flying machine based on boomerang aerodynamics over a decade before helicopters were invented, and his revolutionary approach to sheep shearing technology generated a huge amount of wealth for white Australians, transforming the economy at the time. You can see the patent for his sheers in the openings to all our video episodes! Read more about Unaipon in this piece written in Pursuit. 

IP Provocations is hosted by the Melbourne Law School’s Professor Rebecca Giblin, and the University of Sydney’s Professor Kimberlee Weatherall. You can read more about Giblin’s work here, and Weatherall’s work here. This episode’s guests are:

Larissa Behrendt is a Eualeyai/Kamillaroi woman. She is an award-winning author and filmmaker, a lawyer and the Professor of Law and Director of Research at the Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research at the University of Technology, Sydney. She is the host of ABC Radio National show Speaking Out. She is the director of The First Inventors, a four-part series that tells the story of First Nations innovation. You can read more about all of Behrendt’s work at her website. 

If you’re in Australia, you can watch The First Inventors on SBS On Demand or Ten Play. 

IP Provocations is made with the support of IP Australia - we’re grateful to have had the opportunity to ask such broad ranging questions about the patent system to such interesting people, and get so many surprising answers. The IP Provocations team had full academic freedom in designing these conversations, and the views expressed are those of the individual speakers. 

This podcast was a project of IPRIA, the Intellectual Property Research Institute of Australia, and had additional support from Melbourne Law School and Sydney Law School. The music was composed and recorded by Nina Buchanan. The hosts are Professors Rebecca Giblin and Kimberlee Weatherall, and research support was provided by barrister Amy Surkis. The producer is Greta Robenstone. Anders Furze filled in all the remaining gaps.  IP Provocations acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the lands on which this podcast was produced, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung People of the Kulin Nation, and the Gadigal people of the Eora nation. We pay our respects to their Elders, past and present. This podcast was produced on stolen land - sovereignty was never ceded. Always was, always will be, Aboriginal land.

In part 2 of this extended conversation with activist Achal Prabhala and the WTO’s Tony Taubman, we pick up where we left off, asking if the approach taken to the Medicines Patent Pool could also be used to drive our response to the climate emergency. 

We then tackle a host of thorny patent issues. Should we focus on the distribution of knowledge, and not just generating more of it? Just how bad is the problem of patent trolls? Why are Moderna and Pfizer facing messy legal disputes over the IP behind COVID-19 vaccines? What did the controversial TRIPS waiver actually do? And what are the limits of patents in incentivising innovation?

IP Provocations is hosted by the Melbourne Law School’s Professor Rebecca Giblin, and the University of Sydney’s Professor Kimberlee Weatherall. You can read more about Giblin’s work here, and Weatherall’s work here. This episode’s guests are:

Antony Taubman is Director of the Intellectual Property, Government Procurement and Competitive Division of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), a position he has held since 2009. He is also a Senior Fellow (Melbourne Law Masters) at the Melbourne Law School. You can read more about him at his Melbourne Law School profile. 

Archal Prabhala is a Bangalore-based activist, writer, researcher and filmmaker. He is the coordinator of the AccessIBSA project, which campaigns for access to medicines in India, Brazil and South Africa. You can read more about the project at its website.

IP Provocations is made with the support of IP Australia - we’re grateful to have had the opportunity to ask such broad ranging questions about the patent system to such interesting people, and get so many surprising answers. The IP Provocations team had full academic freedom in designing these conversations, and the views expressed are those of the individual speakers. 

This podcast was a project of IPRIA, the Intellectual Property Research Institute of Australia, and had additional support from Melbourne Law School and Sydney Law School. The music was composed and recorded by Nina Buchanan. The hosts are Professors Rebecca Giblin and Kimberlee Weatherall, and research support was provided by barrister Amy Surkis. The producer is Greta Robenstone. Anders Furze filled in all the remaining gaps.  

IP Provocations acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the lands on which this podcast was produced, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung People of the Kulin Nation, and the Gadigal people of the Eora nation. We pay our respects to their Elders, past and present. This podcast was produced on stolen land - sovereignty was never ceded. Always was, always will be, Aboriginal land.

Our chat centres around the pharmaceutical industry. How are skewed incentives prioritising the lives of rich people over poor people? How is the patent system like high jumping?  What impact is the UN’s Medicines Patent Pool having on equalising access to medicine? And are universities falling into the trap of seeing patents as the most important validation of their research agenda?

Find more information on the Medicines Patent Pool here. 

IP Provocations is hosted by the Melbourne Law School’s Professor Rebecca Giblin, and the University of Sydney’s Professor Kimberlee Weatherall. You can read more about Giblin’s work here, and Weatherall’s work here. This episode’s guests are:

Antony Taubman is Director of the Intellectual Property, Government Procurement and Competitive Division of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), a position he has held since 2009. He is also a Senior Fellow (Melbourne Law Masters) at the Melbourne Law School. You can read more about him at his Melbourne Law School profile. 

Achal Prabhala is a Bangalore-based activist, writer, researcher and filmmaker. He is the coordinator of the AccessIBSA project, which campaigns for access to medicines in India, Brazil and South Africa. You can read more about the project at its website.

IP Provocations is made with the support of IP Australia - we’re grateful to have had the opportunity to ask such broad ranging questions about the patent system to such interesting people, and get so many surprising answers. The IP Provocations team had full academic freedom in designing these conversations, and the views expressed are those of the individual speakers. 

This podcast was a project of IPRIA, the Intellectual Property Research Institute of Australia, and had additional support from Melbourne Law School and Sydney Law School. The music was composed and recorded by Nina Buchanan. The hosts are Professors Rebecca Giblin and Kimberlee Weatherall, and research support was provided by barrister Amy Surkis. The producer is Greta Robenstone. Anders Furze filled in all the remaining gaps.  IP Provocations acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the lands on which this podcast was produced, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung People of the Kulin Nation, and the Gadigal people of the Eora nation. We pay our respects to their Elders, past and present. This podcast was produced on stolen land - sovereignty was never ceded. Always was, always will be, Aboriginal land.

In 2022, just 1.8 per cent of Australian patent applications were by all-women teams, but half were all-male teams, according to research from Dr Vicki Huang.

It’s a remarkable statistic. In this episode of IP Provocations, we dig into the question of who the system recognises as inventors, and who it excludes. What is the correlation between patent protection and racial violence? Why is the stereotypical image of an inventor so often a white man like Thomas Edison or Elon Musk? And if the patent system excludes certain types of knowledge while favouring others, is it really doing its job of ensuring we all benefit from great ideas?

IP Provocations is hosted by the Melbourne Law School’s Professor Rebecca Giblin, and the University of Sydney’s Professor Kimberlee Weatherall. You can read more about Giblin’s work here, and Weatherall’s work here. This episode’s guests are:

Dr Anjali Vats is Associate Professor of Law, with a secondary appointment in Communication, at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. She is the author of The Color of Creatorship: Intellectual Property, Race, and the Making of Americans (Stanford University Press, 2020), which argues that US intellectual property myths are structured by implicit and explicit racialised understandings of who counts as a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ intellectual property citizen, and thus deserves to be rewarded with intellectual property rights. Read more about Anjali at her University of Pittsburgh profile and read more about her book at Stanford University Press.

Dr Jessica Lai is Associate Professor in the School of Accounting and Commercial Law at the Victoria University of Wellington. She is the author of Patent Law and Women: Tackling Gender Bias in Knowledge Governance (2022, Routledge), which analyses the gendered nature of patent law and the knowledge governance system it supports. Read more about Jessica at her Victoria University profile and more about her book at Routledge.

We also discussed Dr Vicki Huang’s research into patents and gender in Australia. You can find her paper on this topic here.

IP Provocations is made with the support of IP Australia - we’re grateful to have had the opportunity to ask such broad ranging questions about the patent system to such interesting people, and get so many surprising answers. The IP Provocations team had full academic freedom in designing these conversations, and the views expressed are those of the individual speakers. 

This podcast was a project of IPRIA, the Intellectual Property Research Institute of Australia, and had additional support from Melbourne Law School and Sydney Law School. The music was composed and recorded by Nina Buchanan. The hosts are Professors Rebecca Giblin and Kimberlee Weatherall, and research support was provided by barrister Amy Surkis. The producer is Greta Robenstone. Anders Furze filled in all the remaining gaps.  

IP Provocations acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the lands on which this podcast was produced, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung People of the Kulin Nation, and the Gadigal people of the Eora nation. We pay our respects to their Elders, past and present. This podcast was produced on stolen land - sovereignty was never ceded. Always was, always will be, Aboriginal land.

Welcome to IP Provocations! In this first episode, we drill experts Janet Freilich and John Liddicoat about the extent to which the promises patent law makes match up with what happens in practice. Is the system working as it’s supposed to? Are patents incentivising the types of innovation we want most? Do we still see scientific breakthroughs without them? What would happen if every patent was actually enforced? And why on earth do people go to the effort of maintaining patents long after they realise the invention they’re protecting is useless?  

IP Provocations is hosted by the Melbourne Law School’s Professor Rebecca Giblin, and the University of Sydney’s Professor Kimberlee Weatherall. You can read more about Giblin’s work here, and Weatherall’s work here. This episode’s guests are:

Professor Janet Freilich is a Professor of Law at Fordham University. Prior to entering academia, she practiced as a patent litigator and prosecutor. You can read more about her research at her Fordham School of Law profile.

You can find Freilich’s paper on the replicability crisis in patent law here. We also discussed her paper on patents’ new salience, which looks at how the patent system has potentially worked precisely because it is under enforced, and how that’s now changing thanks to AI and other technology. You can read that here.

Dr John Liddicoat is senior lecturer in law at King’s College, London. He is particularly interested in biotechnology and life-sciences, and the role patent law plays incentivising innovation in these areas. Read more at his King’s College profile.

We covered Liddicoat’s research into how hospital and university trials actually increase once generic drugs are authorised. You can find that paper here.

IP Provocations is made with the support of IP Australia - we’re grateful to have had the opportunity to ask such broad ranging questions about the patent system to such interesting people, and get so many surprising answers. The IP Provocations team had full academic freedom in designing these conversations, and the views expressed are those of the individual speakers. 

This podcast was a project of IPRIA, the Intellectual Property Research Institute of Australia, and had additional support from Melbourne Law School and Sydney Law School. The music was composed and recorded by Nina Buchanan. The hosts are Professors Rebecca Giblin and Kimberlee Weatherall, and research support was provided by barrister Amy Surkis. The producer is Greta Robenstone. Anders Furze filled in all the remaining gaps.  

IP Provocations acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the lands on which this podcast was produced, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung People of the Kulin Nation, and the Gadigal people of the Eora nation. We pay our respects to their Elders, past and present. This podcast was produced on stolen land - sovereignty was never ceded. Always was, always will be, Aboriginal land.