CIPIL Evening Seminar: ‘Patents for Wellbeing’

Speaker: Professor Andrew Christie, University of Melbourne

Biography: Professor Andrew Christie was the foundation appointment to the Chair of Intellectual Property at the University of Melbourne in 2002.He holds BSc and LLB (Hons) degrees from the University of Melbourne, a LLM from the University of London, and a PhD from the University of Cambridge (Emmanuel College).  Admitted to legal practice in Australia and the United Kingdom, he has worked in the intellectual property departments of law firms in Melbourne and London.  He is a former Fulbright Senior Scholar, and has held research and teaching appointments at the University of Cambridge, Duke University, the National University of Singapore, and the University of Toronto.

Awarded 12 Australian Research Council grants and instrumental in winning other research funding in excess of $11 million, he has authored more than 120 publications, and delivered by invitation more than 180 public addresses in 20 countries, across all areas of intellectual property law. He has served on all of the Australian government’s advisory committees on intellectual property – the Copyright Law Review Committee, the Advisory Council on Intellectual Property, and the Plant Breeder’s Rights Advisory Committee – and has been an expert advisor to World Intellectual Property Organization on a number of occasions.  He currently chairs the Trans-Tasman IP Attorneys Board, the regulator of the Australian and New Zealand patent attorney profession.

Abstract: With more than 18 million patents for inventions in force across 140 jurisdictions, patents are a significant area of the law. However, the traditional justifications for having a patent system are incomplete, and do not take full account of developments in economic thinking that recognise the primary purpose of economics is to enhance human wellbeing. The primary purpose of patents should be likewise. There is sparse academic and policy literature on the relevance of wellbeing economics to patent policy, and what exists leaves unanswered many questions about how the patent system can be used to achieve this policy objective. This presentation answers those questions, by tracing the evolution of wellbeing economics, identifying the doctrinal levers available to implement patent policy, and providing practical examples of the application of those levers to ensure the patent system incentivises innovations that advance wellbeing.

Please note: this event is a hybrid event - it will take place in person in the Cambridge Law Faculty. For those who are unable to make it in person, please register to attend via Zoom.