Queen Mary, University of London has entered a landmark agreement with the Intellectual Property Institute (IPI). The IPI now operates from the College’s Centre for Commercial Law Studies, in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, in collaboration with the Queen Mary Intellectual Property Institute (QMIPRI).
Professor Johanna Gibson, Herchel Smith Professor of Intellectual Property Law at Queen Mary, and Director of QMIPRI, has also become the new Director of IPI as part of the move, bringing together two of the most influential IP research bodies in the UK today.
“Queen Mary has a long history of excellence in research and scholarship in intellectual property,” explained Professor Gibson, the first woman to hold the prestigious Herchel Smith Chair, and the first female director of IPI, “and this collaboration extends our ability to produce cutting-edge research in Britain and overseas.”
Under Professor Gibson’s strategic lead, QMIPRI and IPI intend to create a new “hub for IP research in the heart of legal London”, putting the capital at the “forefront of intellectual property research globally,” said Director of CCLS, Professor Spyros Maniatis.
The collaboration will draw on QMIPRI’s academic excellence on IP law and policy and the skills and knowledge of the IPI’s members: leading business people; lawyers; judges; scholars; economists; scientists and IP practitioners.
Ian Harvey, Chairman of IPI welcomed the development, saying it would help both bodies become “a critical mass of expertise in evidence-based IP research within Europe.”
Leading figure in intellectual property law in the UK, Sir Robin Jacob, Lord Justice of Appeal, also offered his support, saying “the combination will be significantly greater than its constituent parts – a true synergy no less.”
Note to Editors
IPI's move to CCLS coincided with World Intellectual Property Day on 26 April 2010.
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