The Berkman Klein Center is pleased to host a discussion on the new book Intellectual Property, Covid-19, and the Next Pandemic: Diagnosing Problems, Developing Cures with one of the book’s editors, Berkman Klein Faculty Associate Madhavi Sunder, along with Berkman Klein Center Faculty Director William "Terry" Fisher and alum Padmashree Gehl Sampath.
This event will be held at the Berkman Klein Center, 5th floor of the Lewis Law Center, on February 24 from 4:00-5:00 pm ET.
Join a lively conversation with three experts in law, technology, and intellectual property discussing this new volume, which assesses the role of intellectual property in pandemic times through lessons learned from COVID-19. Authored by an international roster of experts, chapters diagnose causes for the inequitable distribution of lifesaving COVID-19 vaccines and offer concrete suggestions for reform. Sunder, Fisher, and Sampath will discuss potential reforms, including enhanced legal requirements under national and international law for sharing publicly funded technologies, and how to build manufacturing capacity in low and middle-income countries (including those in Africa). Ultimately, the aim of this discussion is to highlight timely IP reforms that prepare us for the next pandemic.
Speaker Bios
Madhavi Sunder
Madhavi Sunder is the Frank Sherry Professor of Intellectual Property Law at the Georgetown University Law Center. She is a widely published and influential scholar of intellectual property law, law and technology, and law and culture. Her wide-ranging scholarship ranges from art law to brands, cultural appropriation, design thinking, the experience economy, the global regulation of artificial intelligence, and patents and public health. Her monograph, From Goods to a Good Life: Intellectual Property and Global Justice (Yale University Press 2012) brings a humanist approach to intellectual property law. The author of over 40 articles and book chapters, she has published in the Yale Law Journal, the Stanford Law Review, the University of Michigan Law Review, the California Law Review, the Texas Law Review, and many other leading law journals. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, L.A Times, PBS Newshour, The Harvard Business Review and The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
Terry Fisher
Professor Fisher received his undergraduate degree (in American Studies) from Amherst College and his graduate degrees (J.D. and Ph.D. in the History of American Civilization) from Harvard University. Between 1982 and 1984, he served as a law clerk to Judge Harry T. Edwards of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and then to Justice Thurgood Marshall of the United States Supreme Court. Since 1984, he has taught at Harvard Law School, where he is currently the WilmerHale Professor of Intellectual Property Law and the Director of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society. His academic honors include a Danforth Postbaccalaureate Fellowship (1978-1982) and a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Stanford, California (1992-1993).
Padmashree Gehl Sampath
Padmashree Gehl Sampath is the Chief Executive Officer of the African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation, a new pan African institution created to improve the technology environment in Africa, based in Kigali, Rwanda. She is a well-respected thought leader in the field of development studies and global health, working on current challenges predominantly from a trade, technology and industrialization perspective. She holds a honorary professorship at the University of Rwanda, is a visiting Professor at the University of Johannesburg, SA, and is Professorial Fellow, United Nations University-MERIT. Padmashree is on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Competition and Change, is the author of six books, and her research has appeared in the Michigan Journal of International Law, Harvard International Review, Harvard Public Health Review, among others. She currently has two more books in the pipeline, one that directly looks at global governance for health in a post-pandemic world.