Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law (CIPIL) Podcast

Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge

The Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law CIPIL was founded in 2004. Through its activities, CIPIL aims to promote the investigation, understanding and critical appraisal of these important fields of law. The CIPIL Intellectual Property Seminar Series brings together specialist speakers to discuss prevailing issues in relation to copyright, patents, trademarks, design rights, and other subjects. The Centre brings together a group of legal academics already recognised for their historical and inter-disciplinary, as well as doctrinal, research. Drawing on the resources of Cambridge University, CIPIL is ideally positioned to carry out and promote well-informed interdisciplinary work. For more information see the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law website at http://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/

  1. 15 HR AGO

    Trademarks and Free Speech: Conflicts and Resolutions: CIPIL Evening Seminar

    Speaker: Lisa P. Ramsey, Professor of Law, University of San Diego School of Law Professor Lisa P. Ramsey, Professor of Law at the University of San Diego School of Law and an expert on trademark law, will be speaking on her new book, Trademarks and Free Speech: Conflicts and Resolutions (CUP: 2026). This book explores how trademark laws can conflict with the right to freedom of expression and proposes a framework for evaluating free speech challenges to trademark registration and enforcement laws. It also explains why granting trademark rights in informational terms, political messages, widely used phrases, decorative product features, and other language and designs with substantial pre-existing communicative value can harm free expression and fair competition. Lisa Ramsey encourages governments to not register or protect broad trademark rights in these types of inherently valuable expression. She also recommends that trademark statutes explicitly allow certain informational, expressive, and decorative fair uses of another’s trademark, and proposes other speech-protective and pro-competitive reforms of trademark law for consideration by legislatures, courts, and trademark offices in the United States, Europe, and other countries. You can order a copy of the book from CUP’s website here, using the code RAMSEY25 at checkout for a 20% discount. Biography: Lisa P. Ramsey is a Professor of Law at the University of San Diego School of Law, where she teaches and writes in the intellectual property law area. She is an expert on trademark law and has given presentations on this topic to attorneys, professors, and students throughout the United States and around the world. Professor Ramsey’s scholarship focuses on potential conflicts between trademark laws and free speech rights, and explains how trademark protection of certain inherently valuable words, symbols, and product features can harm fair competition and freedom of expression. In 2024, she testified at a hearing held by the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee's Intellectual Property Subcommittee about the First Amendment implications of a proposed anti-impersonation law targeted at unauthorized digital replicas called the No FAKES Act. She has also talked about free speech limits on trademark rights on panels at San Diego Comic-Con in 2023 and 2024. Professor Ramsey is an active member of the American Intellectual Property Law Association and worked on the subcommittee that updated the International Trademark Association’s Model Trademark Law Guidelines in 2019. Before joining the USD law faculty in 2004, she was an intellectual property litigator at Gray Cary Ware & Freidenrich and a judicial law clerk for the Honorable Rebecca Beach Smith in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. In July 2025, she was named a Women of Influence in Law 2025 Honoree by the San Diego Business Journal. Information about her publications is available on her website at www.lisapramsey.com. For more information see: https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-seminars

    54 min

  2. 27 MAR

    Abuse of IP Rights. Lessons from the United States?: CIPIL Spring Conference 2026

    Speaker: Professor Leah Grinwald (Dean and Richard J. Morgan Professor of Law, University of Nevada) Session 3: Comparative Experience and Potential Reform On Saturday 21 March 2026, the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law (CIPIL) held its Annual Spring Conference entitled 'Abuse of Intellectual Property Rights' In Crypto Open Patent Alliance v Wright [2024] EWHC 1809 (Ch), [63], Mellor J. observed “IP rights, being monopolies of various sorts, are … justified in that their net benefit is in the public interest, with a view to fostering creativity and innovation. By corollary, where IP rights are abused to stifle creativity and innovation, the legal system ought to have the means to respond effectively.” The statement raises three questions which are the subject of this conference: (i) when are IP rights to be regarded as “abused”? (ii) What mechanisms exist to respond to such abuses? And (iii) Does the legal system have sufficient mechanisms by which to “respond effectively”? Programme: Abuses (This session not recorded) - Abuses of Trade Marks – Stuart Baran (3 New Square) - Abuses of Designs – David Stone (White & Case) - Abuse in FRAND Patent Litigation – Daniel Alexander KC (8 New Square) Current Disinventives and Remedies - Remedies for Abuses: Actions for Threats – Trevor Cook (Bird and Bird) - Preventing Misuse of interim injunctions: The Cross-Undertaking - Dr Katarina Foss-Solbrekk (University of Copenhagen) - Remedies for Abuses: The Role and Limits of Competition Law to Prevent Enforcement of Invalid IPRs– Dr Quentin Schaefer (11 South Square) - Preventing Abuses: Ethical Obligations of Patent and Trade Mark Attorneys – Phil Barnes (BarnesIP) Comparative Experience and Potential Reform - Does the UK Need a Distinct Doctrine of Abuse of Right? – Lessons from the Civil Law – Dr Amandine Leonard (University of Edinburgh) - Abuse of IP Rights. Lessons from the United States? Professor Leah Grinwald (Dean and Richard J. Morgan Professor of Law, University of Nevada) For more information see: https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-spring-conference

    33 min

  3. 27 MAR

    Does the UK Need a Distinct Doctrine of Abuse of Right?: CIPIL Spring Conference 2026

    Speaker: Trevor Cook (Bird and Bird) Full title: 'Does the UK Need a Distinct Doctrine of Abuse of Right? – Lessons from the Civil Law' Session 3: Comparative Experience and Potential Reform On Saturday 21 March 2026, the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law (CIPIL) held its Annual Spring Conference entitled 'Abuse of Intellectual Property Rights' In Crypto Open Patent Alliance v Wright [2024] EWHC 1809 (Ch), [63], Mellor J. observed “IP rights, being monopolies of various sorts, are … justified in that their net benefit is in the public interest, with a view to fostering creativity and innovation. By corollary, where IP rights are abused to stifle creativity and innovation, the legal system ought to have the means to respond effectively.” The statement raises three questions which are the subject of this conference: (i) when are IP rights to be regarded as “abused”? (ii) What mechanisms exist to respond to such abuses? And (iii) Does the legal system have sufficient mechanisms by which to “respond effectively”? Programme: Abuses (This session not recorded) - Abuses of Trade Marks – Stuart Baran (3 New Square) - Abuses of Designs – David Stone (White & Case) - Abuse in FRAND Patent Litigation – Daniel Alexander KC (8 New Square) Current Disinventives and Remedies - Remedies for Abuses: Actions for Threats – Trevor Cook (Bird and Bird) - Preventing Misuse of interim injunctions: The Cross-Undertaking - Dr Katarina Foss-Solbrekk (University of Copenhagen) - Remedies for Abuses: The Role and Limits of Competition Law to Prevent Enforcement of Invalid IPRs– Dr Quentin Schaefer (11 South Square) - Preventing Abuses: Ethical Obligations of Patent and Trade Mark Attorneys – Phil Barnes (BarnesIP) Comparative Experience and Potential Reform - Does the UK Need a Distinct Doctrine of Abuse of Right? – Lessons from the Civil Law – Dr Amandine Leonard (University of Edinburgh) - Abuse of IP Rights. Lessons from the United States? Professor Leah Grinwald (Dean and Richard J. Morgan Professor of Law, University of Nevada) For more information see: https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-spring-conference

    28 min

  4. 27 MAR

    Ethical Obligations of Patent and Trade Mark Attorneys: : CIPIL Spring Conference 2026

    Speaker: Phil Barnes (BarnesIP) Session 2: Current Disincentives and Remedies On Saturday 21 March 2026, the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law (CIPIL) held its Annual Spring Conference entitled 'Abuse of Intellectual Property Rights' In Crypto Open Patent Alliance v Wright [2024] EWHC 1809 (Ch), [63], Mellor J. observed “IP rights, being monopolies of various sorts, are … justified in that their net benefit is in the public interest, with a view to fostering creativity and innovation. By corollary, where IP rights are abused to stifle creativity and innovation, the legal system ought to have the means to respond effectively.” The statement raises three questions which are the subject of this conference: (i) when are IP rights to be regarded as “abused”? (ii) What mechanisms exist to respond to such abuses? And (iii) Does the legal system have sufficient mechanisms by which to “respond effectively”? Programme: Abuses (This session not recorded) - Abuses of Trade Marks – Stuart Baran (3 New Square) - Abuses of Designs – David Stone (White & Case) - Abuse in FRAND Patent Litigation – Daniel Alexander KC (8 New Square) Current Disinventives and Remedies - Remedies for Abuses: Actions for Threats – Trevor Cook (Bird and Bird) - Preventing Misuse of interim injunctions: The Cross-Undertaking - Dr Katarina Foss-Solbrekk (University of Copenhagen) - Remedies for Abuses: The Role and Limits of Competition Law to Prevent Enforcement of Invalid IPRs– Dr Quentin Schaefer (11 South Square) - Preventing Abuses: Ethical Obligations of Patent and Trade Mark Attorneys – Phil Barnes (BarnesIP) Comparative Experience and Potential Reform - Does the UK Need a Distinct Doctrine of Abuse of Right? – Lessons from the Civil Law – Dr Amandine Leonard (University of Edinburgh) - Abuse of IP Rights. Lessons from the United States? Professor Leah Grinwald (Dean and Richard J. Morgan Professor of Law, University of Nevada) For more information see: https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-spring-conference

    28 min

  5. 27 MAR

    Preventing Misuse of interim injunctions: The Cross-Undertaking: CIPIL Spring Conference 2026

    Speaker: Dr Katarina Foss-Solbrekk (University of Copenhagen) Session 2: Current Disincentives and Remedies On Saturday 21 March 2026, the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law (CIPIL) held its Annual Spring Conference entitled 'Abuse of Intellectual Property Rights' In Crypto Open Patent Alliance v Wright [2024] EWHC 1809 (Ch), [63], Mellor J. observed “IP rights, being monopolies of various sorts, are … justified in that their net benefit is in the public interest, with a view to fostering creativity and innovation. By corollary, where IP rights are abused to stifle creativity and innovation, the legal system ought to have the means to respond effectively.” The statement raises three questions which are the subject of this conference: (i) when are IP rights to be regarded as “abused”? (ii) What mechanisms exist to respond to such abuses? And (iii) Does the legal system have sufficient mechanisms by which to “respond effectively”? Programme: Abuses (This session not recorded) - Abuses of Trade Marks – Stuart Baran (3 New Square) - Abuses of Designs – David Stone (White & Case) - Abuse in FRAND Patent Litigation – Daniel Alexander KC (8 New Square) Current Disinventives and Remedies - Remedies for Abuses: Actions for Threats – Trevor Cook (Bird and Bird) - Preventing Misuse of interim injunctions: The Cross-Undertaking - Dr Katarina Foss-Solbrekk (University of Copenhagen) - Remedies for Abuses: The Role and Limits of Competition Law to Prevent Enforcement of Invalid IPRs– Dr Quentin Schaefer (11 South Square) - Preventing Abuses: Ethical Obligations of Patent and Trade Mark Attorneys – Phil Barnes (BarnesIP) Comparative Experience and Potential Reform - Does the UK Need a Distinct Doctrine of Abuse of Right? – Lessons from the Civil Law – Dr Amandine Leonard (University of Edinburgh) - Abuse of IP Rights. Lessons from the United States? Professor Leah Grinwald (Dean and Richard J. Morgan Professor of Law, University of Nevada) For more information see: https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-spring-conference

    18 min

  6. 27 MAR

    Remedies for Abuses: Actions for Unjustified Threats: CIPIL Spring Conference 2026

    Speaker: Trevor Cook (Bird and Bird) Session 2: Current Disincentives and Remedies On Saturday 21 March 2026, the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law (CIPIL) held its Annual Spring Conference entitled 'Abuse of Intellectual Property Rights' In Crypto Open Patent Alliance v Wright [2024] EWHC 1809 (Ch), [63], Mellor J. observed “IP rights, being monopolies of various sorts, are … justified in that their net benefit is in the public interest, with a view to fostering creativity and innovation. By corollary, where IP rights are abused to stifle creativity and innovation, the legal system ought to have the means to respond effectively.” The statement raises three questions which are the subject of this conference: (i) when are IP rights to be regarded as “abused”? (ii) What mechanisms exist to respond to such abuses? And (iii) Does the legal system have sufficient mechanisms by which to “respond effectively”? Programme: Abuses (This session not recorded) - Abuses of Trade Marks – Stuart Baran (3 New Square) - Abuses of Designs – David Stone (White & Case) - Abuse in FRAND Patent Litigation – Daniel Alexander KC (8 New Square) Current Disinventives and Remedies - Remedies for Abuses: Actions for Threats – Trevor Cook (Bird and Bird) - Preventing Misuse of interim injunctions: The Cross-Undertaking - Dr Katarina Foss-Solbrekk (University of Copenhagen) - Remedies for Abuses: The Role and Limits of Competition Law to Prevent Enforcement of Invalid IPRs– Dr Quentin Schaefer (11 South Square) - Preventing Abuses: Ethical Obligations of Patent and Trade Mark Attorneys – Phil Barnes (BarnesIP) Comparative Experience and Potential Reform - Does the UK Need a Distinct Doctrine of Abuse of Right? – Lessons from the Civil Law – Dr Amandine Leonard (University of Edinburgh) - Abuse of IP Rights. Lessons from the United States? Professor Leah Grinwald (Dean and Richard J. Morgan Professor of Law, University of Nevada) For more information see: https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-spring-conference

    33 min

  7. 27 MAR

    The Role and Limits of Competition Law to Prevent Enforcement of Invalid IPRs: CIPIL Conference 2026

    Speaker: Dr Quentin Schaefer (11 South Square) Session 2: Current Disincentives and Remedies On Saturday 21 March 2026, the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law (CIPIL) held its Annual Spring Conference entitled 'Abuse of Intellectual Property Rights' In Crypto Open Patent Alliance v Wright [2024] EWHC 1809 (Ch), [63], Mellor J. observed “IP rights, being monopolies of various sorts, are … justified in that their net benefit is in the public interest, with a view to fostering creativity and innovation. By corollary, where IP rights are abused to stifle creativity and innovation, the legal system ought to have the means to respond effectively.” The statement raises three questions which are the subject of this conference: (i) when are IP rights to be regarded as “abused”? (ii) What mechanisms exist to respond to such abuses? And (iii) Does the legal system have sufficient mechanisms by which to “respond effectively”? Programme: Abuses (This session not recorded) - Abuses of Trade Marks – Stuart Baran (3 New Square) - Abuses of Designs – David Stone (White & Case) - Abuse in FRAND Patent Litigation – Daniel Alexander KC (8 New Square) Current Disinventives and Remedies - Remedies for Abuses: Actions for Threats – Trevor Cook (Bird and Bird) - Preventing Misuse of interim injunctions: The Cross-Undertaking - Dr Katarina Foss-Solbrekk (University of Copenhagen) - Remedies for Abuses: The Role and Limits of Competition Law to Prevent Enforcement of Invalid IPRs– Dr Quentin Schaefer (11 South Square) - Preventing Abuses: Ethical Obligations of Patent and Trade Mark Attorneys – Phil Barnes (BarnesIP) Comparative Experience and Potential Reform - Does the UK Need a Distinct Doctrine of Abuse of Right? – Lessons from the Civil Law – Dr Amandine Leonard (University of Edinburgh) - Abuse of IP Rights. Lessons from the United States? Professor Leah Grinwald (Dean and Richard J. Morgan Professor of Law, University of Nevada) For more information see: https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-spring-conference

    33 min
  8. Thirty Plus One: TRIPS, Innovation, and the Political Future of Minimum IP Standards: 19th Annual International Intellectual Property Lecture

    24 MAR

    Thirty Plus One: TRIPS, Innovation, and the Political Future of Minimum IP Standards: 19th Annual International Intellectual Property Lecture

    The nineteenth Annual International Intellectual Property Lecture was delivered by Professor Ruth Okediji, Jeremiah Smith. Jr, Professor of Law; Faculty Co-Director, Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, Harvard University on Tuesday 17 March 2026. The lecture entitled 'Thirty Plus One: TRIPS, Innovation, and the Political Future of Minimum IP Standards' took place at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. For more information see: https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/

    48 min
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About

The Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law CIPIL was founded in 2004. Through its activities, CIPIL aims to promote the investigation, understanding and critical appraisal of these important fields of law. The CIPIL Intellectual Property Seminar Series brings together specialist speakers to discuss prevailing issues in relation to copyright, patents, trademarks, design rights, and other subjects. The Centre brings together a group of legal academics already recognised for their historical and inter-disciplinary, as well as doctrinal, research. Drawing on the resources of Cambridge University, CIPIL is ideally positioned to carry out and promote well-informed interdisciplinary work. For more information see the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law website at http://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/

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