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Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property

Professor Sonia Katyal

10th Annual Peter A. Jaszi Distinguished Lecture on Intellectual Property 

October 28, 2021 | 6:00pm | Zoom
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Sonia Katyal

Professor Sonia Katyal is the Haas Distinguished Professor and Co-Director of the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology at the University of California, Berkeley. 

Her current projects focus on artificial intelligence and intellectual property; the intersection between the right to information and human rights; trademark law and branding; and a variety of projects on the intersection between museums, cultural property, and new media. As a member and chair of the university-wide Haas LGBT Cluster, Professor Katyal also works on matters regarding law, gender, and sexuality.

About the Lecture:
The Commercial Counterpublic - For years, commercial speech has been on a collision course with political speech. Nowhere is this more apparent than the world of intellectual property law, which has become even more fraught after a series of recent Supreme Court decisions that have embraced First Amendment values over the protection of intellectual property.  In this talk, I develop a theory that situates these recent cases as part of a growing trend of counterpublic discourse that develops in parallel to mainstream public spheres, enabling subordinated social groups to circulate oppositional interpretations of their identities.  Using the notion of counterpublic intellectual properties as a lens, this talk attempts to show how these cases – and the inequities that follow from them -- may produce an even greater discord between the marketplace of goods and ideas as a result. 

About the Series:
PIJIP’s Distinguished Lecture on Intellectual Property Law is named in recognition of the continuing contributions of Professor Peter A. Jaszi to the study of intellectual property at WCL, in the world at large, and in particular for his lasting contributions to the elevation of the public interest in intellectual property discourse.

The Peter A. Jaszi Distinguished Lecture on Intellectual Property is supported by tax-deductible contributions to the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property.

To support the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property, click here