Professor David Vaver
MA(Oxon), BA, LLB (Hons) (Auckland), JD (Chicago)
Professor of Intellectual Property Law

Professor David Vaver is returning to Osgoode from Oxford this year where he was Director of the Oxford Intellectual Property Research Centre. Professor Vaver is an Emeritus Fellow of St. Peter’s College at Oxford. Professor Vaver has written extensively in intellectual property law including two texts – Intellectual Property Law: Copyright, Patents, Trademarks (Toronto: Irwin Law 1997) and Copyright Law (Toronto: Irwin Law 2000).  His most recent work, a five-volume compilation of leading IP articles, Intellectual Property Rights: Critical Concepts in Law (Routledge, 2006), demonstrates his endless fascination with IP.

Professor Robert Kozinets

An anthropologist by training, Robert V. Kozinets is Associate Professor of Marketing at York University’s Schulich School of Business. Previously, he was a full-time faculty member at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management in Chicago, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Business. Professor Kozinets is a global expert on online market research methods, and on online communities and the way they inform consumer insight and impact marketing and brand strategy. He has extensive speaking and consulting experience with a range of Fortune 500 and mid-size companies and organizations. In 1995, he developed the technique of netnography or Internet ethnography for the marketing-related study of online communities. He continues to develop and expand the method, applying it to the strategic understanding of blogs, microblogs, virtual worlds, and social networking sites. His latest book, Netnography: Doing Ethnographic Research Online, will be published by Sage in Fall 2009.

Dr. Dev Gangjee

Dev Gangjee is a Lecturer at the London School of Economics. He is a graduate of the National Law School of India (BA, LLB) and the University of Oxford (BCL, DPhil), where he was a Rhodes Scholar. Dev is presently an Associate of the Oxford IP Research Centre and a Research Affiliate with IP Osgoode. He has advised both governments and law firms on intellectual property issues.

Dev’s research focuses broadly on Intellectual Property, but with a special emphasis on property interests in signs and the legal regulation of communication. This includes Trade Marks, Geographical Indications and Domain Names. He’s presented research on Geographical Indications in Japan, the UK, the US, China and India and is currently writing a monograph (CUP), while also editing a volume (Edward Elgar) on this subject. Additional research interests include the political economy of IP, collective innovation, IP and development and the protection of Traditional Knowledge.

Professor Geertrui Van Overwalle

Geertrui Van Overwalle (Dr. Iur., 1995, K.U. Leuven, Belgium) is Professor of Intellectual Property Law at the University of Leuven (Belgium) and Professor of Patent Law and New Technologies at the University of Tilburg (the Netherlands). Her main fields of research are patent law, plant breeder’s rights law, patents and biotechnology, IP and biodiversity, IP and ethics. Her latest book Gene Patents and Collaborative Licensing Models. Patent Pools, Clearing Houses, Open Source Models and Liability Regimes was published with CUP (477 p., 2009). The latest publications of her research team contain the results of a gene patents landscaping study (HUYS, I., BERTHELS, N., MATTHIJS, G. and VAN OVERWALLE, G., ‘Legal Uncertainty in the Area of Genetic Diagnostic Testing’, Nature Biotechnology, in press) and of a survey on gene patent licensing (VAN ZIMMEREN, E., VANNESTE, S. and VAN OVERWALLE, G., Patent Licensing in Medical Biotechnology, Leuven, CIR, June 2009, 120 p.). Geertrui Van Overwalle is a member of the national High Council for Intellectual Property and of the national Council for Bioethics. She is also a member of the European Commission’s Expert Group on Biotechnological Inventions.

Pascale Chapdelaine

Pascale Chapdelaine, (LL.B and B.C.L. Mc Gill,1989; LL.M. K.U. Leuven, Belgium 1991) is a PhD candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School, a member of IP Osgoode and Adjunct Professor at the University of Toronto, Faculty of Law. Her research interests focus on international intellectual property law, and on the interaction between Copyright law and consumer protection laws and policy. Pascale practiced law for more than 14 years in the area of intellectual property and corporate/commercial law. As Vice-President and Executive Director, Intellectual Property of Bell Canada and BCE Inc., she was responsible for the overall strategy and management of Bell Canada and affiliates intellectual property. Pascale is a member of Le Barreau du Québec (1992) and of the Bar of Ontario (1999).

Professor Ariel Katz

Ariel Katz is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Toronto. Ariel holds the Innovation Chair in Electronic Commerce. He is the Director of the Centre for Innovation Law and Policy of the University of Toronto. He received his LL.B. and LL.M from Faculty of Law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and his SJD from the Faculty of Law, University of Toronto. His general area of research involves economic analysis of competition law and intellectual property law, with allied interests in electronic commerce, the regulation of international trade and particularly the intersection of all these fields. Professor Katz came to the University of Toronto after practicing competition law for 4 years at the Israeli Antitrust Authority. While there, he litigated several merger appeals and restrictive arrangements cases before the Antitrust Tribunal and negotiated regulatory settlements.

Drew Olsen

Mr. Olsen is currently Director, Legislation and Negotiations at the Copyright Policy Branch of the Department of Canadian Heritage.  The Copyright Policy Branch ensures that Canada’s copyright policy framework, a cornerstone of cultural policy, supports creation, innovation and access to cultural works.  The Branch provides research and analysis to develop and maintain a copyright policy framework that responds to the emerging challenges of domestic and international trends.

Prior to joining Canadian Heritage, Mr. Olsen was the Chief of Economic Analysis at Fisheries and Oceans Canada.  He has also held positions at Industry Canada in telecommunications policy and in the Broadband for Rural and Northern Development Program.

He served as an ex-officio member of the Board of Directors of the Canadian Internet Registration Authority from 2000-2002, and has represented Canada at the Governmental Advisory Committee of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.  He also served on the Secretariat of the National Broadband Task Force.  He holds an M.A. in Economics from the University of Toronto, and received his L.L.B. from the University of British Columbia.  He was called to the British Columbia Bar in 1997.