Professor Graeme Austin leads South East Asian IP research
Professor Graeme Austin (Chair in Private Law) has recently returned from Singapore where he is playing a leading role in a research project on the coordination of intellectual property laws of ASEAN countries.
Professor Austin, who was the 2014 Yong Shook Lin Visiting Professor of Intellectual Property at the National University of Singapore, co-convened a recent public conference on IP Interoperabilty run by the National University of Singapore’s Centre for Law and Business. He was also a speaker at the Singapore IP Academy’s Fifth Global Forum on Intellectual Property 2015, joining Mr Justice Birss, a judge of the High Court of Justice of England and Wales, and two leading IP practitioners to explore strategic and legal issues in the context of multinational IP litigation.
Professor Austin is collaborating with principal investigator, Associate Professor Elizabeth Siew-Kuan NG, from the National University of Singapore Law School, on a research project that that will bring together leading scholars and experts in IP and private international law to consider the need and potential benefits of making the IP systems more interoperable in ASEAN and beyond.
Professor Austin says the ASEAN group provides a unique context in which to explore “IP interoperability”.
“The ‘ASEAN Way’ is informed by a deep respect for the sovereignty of the individual nations and regard for the differences in levels of economic development. As a result, substantive harmonization of IP laws of the kind we see in the European Union is not on the table. We need to look to other means of achieving IP interoperability, including through private international law and inter-agency dialogue and cooperation.”
Professor Austin and Associate Professor Siew-Kuan NG’s research will draw from papers presented at their recent conference on IP Interoperabilty, as well as a second conference they will convene in Singapore in January 2016. Their research will also examine other initiatives outside of the ASEAN context that provide a wider perspective on the issues faced by the ASEAN nations, including the Latin America IP Cooperation model.
The research will form part of a forthcoming book which will be published by Cambridge University Press.