Over the past two decades, globalization, digitization, and the rise of the Internet have each contributed to a new prominence for intellectual property law in public policy debates around the world. Questions about how intellectual property is controlled, licensed, used, and reused are all part of a growing public discourse that now engages far more than an elite cadre of lawyers. Because intellectual property law now trenches so deeply on issues of economics, culture, health, commerce, creativity, and intellectual freedom, it is no surprise that there is also a burgeoning literature on intellectual property issues that comes, not just from legal academics or lawyers, but from those trained in other disciplines. In the spring of 2012, the Centre for Law, Technology, and Society at the University of Ottawa hosted a workshop that sought to bring together academics from different disciplines interested in intellectual property law in order to stimulate discussion across disciplines, to encourage the development of collaborative efforts, and to produce a body of research that explores intellectual property law issues from explicitly interdisciplinary perspectives. The collection of papers in this book is the product of this workshop.

B Courtney Doagoo is a PhD Candidate at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law. Her interests in the arts and culture have led her to pursue legal issues at the intersection of intellectual property and creativity, innovation, fashion, commerce, the Internet, the arts, and Traditional Knowledge. She is a regular contributor to IP Osgoode’s IPilogue (iposgoode.ca) and the Centre for Art Law (itsartlaw.com), and is in the process of co-creating an online cultural forum colours on white background (coloursonwhitebackground. com). Since 2012 she has been a Director on the Board of MASC: Multicultural Arts | Schools | Communities (masconline.ca).

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Mistrale Goudreau is Full Professor at the Civil Law Section of the University of Ottawa where she has been teaching since 1982. Her areas of teaching include intellectual property, law and technology, and statutory interpretation. In the past, Mistrale Goudreau has acted as the Assistant Dean for clinical and applied teaching and the Vice Dean of the Civil Law Section of the University of Ottawa. She is a member of the executive committee of the editorial board of Les cahiers de propriété intellectuelle. She has published numerous articles on copyright, unfair competition, legislative drafting, and legal theory. She recently authored a book entitled International Encyclopaedia of Laws: Intellectual Property Law in Canada, (Alphen aan den Rijn (Netherlands): Kluwer Law International, 2013).

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Teresa Scassa is the Canada Research Chair in Information Law at the University of Ottawa, where she is also a professor at the Faculty of Law. She is a founder and former editor of the Canadian Journal of Law and Technology; author of Canadian Trademark Law (LexisNexis, 2010); co-author of Electronic Commerce and Internet Law in Canada (CCH Canadian Ltd, 2012), which was the winner of the 2013 Walter Owen Book Prize; and co-author of Canadian Intellectual Property Law: Cases, Notes and Materials (Emond Montgomery, 2013). She is also a co-editor of the recently published Intellectual Property for the 21st Century: Interdisciplinary Approaches (Irwin Law, 2014). She is a member of the External Advisory Committee of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, and of the Canadian Government Advisory Committee on Open Government. She has written widely in the areas of intellectual property law, law and technology, and privacy.

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Madelaine Saginur is the Executive Director of University of Ottawa’s Centre for Law, Technology, and Society. She is also a member of Canadian Blood Services’ Research Ethics Board. Previously, she practiced intellectual property law, and also worked as a Research Associate at University of Montreal’s Centre de recherche en droit public. She has published in the area of bioethics and health law. She holds a BSc from University of Toronto, as well as BCL & LLB degrees from McGill University.

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