Philosophy and Intellectual Property Conference
London, UK
29-30 May, 2009
The Philosophy and Intellectual Property Conference brings together an internationally renowned group of philosophers and legal theorists. It will discuss whether intellectual property, as currently conceived, has any philosophical or legal coherence that distinguishes it from other forms of property, or other rights that people might have in their bodies, ideas and in the world. Intellectual property rights give their holders considerable powers to with-hold life-saving inventions and medicines, to prevent the dissemination and sharing of books, music and art work and to charge fees for licensing and use that only the wealthiest individuals and governments are able to pay. Therefore the aim of this conference is to promote dialogue between lawyers and philosophers over the solution to conceptual and normative problems in the treatment of intellectual property, as these are, increasingly, of practical as well as theoretical importance, and difficult to resolve within the bounds of any one intellectual discipline.
Contributions
Why property? Intellectual Production and the Complex Structure of Ownership
Chair: Hillel Steiner – School of Social Sciences, University of Manchester, UK
Presenter: John Christman – Department of Philosophy, Pennsylvania State University, USA
Commentator: Abraham Drassinower – Faculty of Law, University of Toronto, Canada
Patents and the Human Genome
Chair: Andrew Williams – Department of Philosophy, University of Warwick, UK
Presenter: Leif Wenar – School of Law, King’s College, UK
Commentator: Annabelle Lever – Department of Philosophy, London School of Economics, UK
Trademarks, Brands and Dispositions
Chair: Tim Crane – Department of Philosophy, University College London, UK
Presenter: Dominic John Scott – Department of Philosophy, University of Virginia, USA
Commentator: Lionel Bently – Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge, UK
Do We Really Need IP Rights?
Chair: Richard Bellamy – Department of Political Science, University College London, UK
Presenter: Alex Rosenberg – Department of Philosophy, Duke University, USA
Commentator: Maurizio Borghi – Law School, Brunel University, London, UK
Reparations Arguments for Intellectual Property Rights in Traditional Knowledge
Chair: Tim Roberts – The Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys, UK
Presenter: Stephen R. Munzer – School of Law, UCLA, USA
Commentator: Graham Dutfield – School of Law, University of Leeds, UK
Using Disparate Norms Into Intellectual Property: A Mistake?
Chair: John O’Neill – Department of Philosophy, University of Manchester, UK
Presenter: Martin Kretschmer – Law Department, University of Bournemouth, UK
Commentator: Charles Beitz – Department of Politics, Princeton University, USA
What’s Wrong With Plagiarism?
Chair: Dev Gangjee – Department of Law, London School of Economics, UK
Presenter: Alex Oliver – Faculty of Philosophy, University of Cambridge, UK
Commentator: Harry Lesser – Department of Philosophy, University of Manchester, UK
On the Value of the Intellectual Commons
Chair: Barry Smith – Institute of Philosophy, University of London, UK
Presenter: James Wilson – Comprehensive Biomedical Research Centre and Centre for Philosophy Justice and
Health, University College London, UK
Commentator: Christopher Wadlow – Department of Law, University of East Anglia
P2P Sharing and Free-Riding
Chair: Otilia Miclosina – Western University of Timisoara, Romania
Presenter: Geert Demuijnck – Edhec Business School, Lille, France
Commentator: Seana Shiffrin – Department of Philosophy and School of Law, UCLA, USA
Individual Data and the Limits of Ownership
Chair: Kathleen Liddell – Centre for Intellectual Property & Information Law and Faculty of Law, University
of Cambridge, UK
Presenter: Luciano Floridi – Department of Philosophy, University of Hertfordshire and St. Cross College,
University of Oxford, UK
Commentator: Axel Gosseries Ramalho – Faculté des Sciences Économiques, Sociales et Politiques, Université
Catholique de Louvain, Belgium
Copyright and the Public Sphere
Chair: Rowan Cruft – Department of Philosophy, University of Stirling, UK
Presenter: Anne Barron – Department of Law, London School of Economics, UK
Commentator: Laura Biron – Department of Philosophy, University of Cambridge, UK
A detailed schedule of the conference will be made available on this site prior to the conference.
Other Participants
Mike Adcock – Durham Law School, University of Durham, UK
Jason Alexander – Department of Philosophy, London School of Economics, UK
Jane Calvert – Innogen Research, University of Edinburgh, UK
Ashok Chakravarty – European Patent Office, Munich, Germany
Ronan Deazley – Birmingham Law School, The University of Birmingham, UK
Speranta Dumitru – Centre de Recherche, Sens, Éthique, Société, Université René Descartes Paris 5, France
Matthew J. Elsmore – Aarhus Schol of Business, University of Aarhus, Denmark
Amy Gibson – EMI Group Ltd, London, UK
Belinda Isaac – Isaac & Co. Ltd, UK
Barbara Lauriat – St. Catherine’s College, Oxford University, UK
Margaret Llewelyn – School of Law, The University of Sheffield, UK
David Papineau – Department of Philosophy, King’s College, University of London, UK
Chris Peacock – Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College, London, UK
Timothy Pinto – Taylor Wessing LLP, London, UK
Muireann Quigley – Institute for Science, Ethics, and Education, School of Law, University of Manchester, UK
Mathias Risse – John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
Chris Wadlow – The Norwich Law School, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of East Anglia, UK
John Williams – ip21 Ltd, London, UK
Organisation and Sponsorship
The conference is organised by Annabelle Lever from the Department of Philosophy at the London School of Economics.
Generous support and sponsorship for the organisation of the conference is provided by
The Aristotelian Society
The Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)
The Institute of Philosophy of the School of Advanced Study (SAS), University of London, and
The Mind Association
The Society for Applied Philosophy
Location
The conference venue is the Institute of Philosophy, School of Advanced Study (SAS), University of London. The institute is located in the Stewart House building of the University of London. However, the conference will be held in the Senate House building, which is located next to Stewart House. You can find here an area map of the venue. More details of the conference room will be made available in the weeks before the conference.
For transportation to hotels and the conference venue please visit the Transport for London site.
Accommodation
A limited amount of accommodation, at very competitive prices, has been arranged at the
Goodenough Club
Goodenough College
23 Mecklenburgh Square
London WC1N 2AD
To make reservations please contact
Marzena Orzol
Senior Reservations Officer
Tel: +44 (0) 207 769 4727
Fax: +44 (0) 207 837 9321
Email: reservations@goodenough.ac.uk
and mention this conference.
Contact
Annabelle Lever
Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method
London School of Economics
Lakatos Building
Houghton Street
London WC2A 2AE
Tel: +44 (0) 207 955 6004 or +44 (0) 796 128 9396
Fax: +44 (0) 207 955 6845
Email: a.p.lever@lse.ac.uk
