7th Annual IP/Gender: Gender & Invention CFP

IP/Gender: Mapping the Connections

7th Annual Symposium, April 16, 2010
American University Washington College of Law

Special Theme: Gender and Invention

Sponsored by
American University Washington College of Law’s Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property and Women and the Law Program
Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

In collaboration with Dan Burk, Chancellor’s Professor of Law, U.C. Irvine

Deadline for submission of abstracts: October 30, 2009

The 7th Annual Symposium on “IP/Gender: Mapping the Connections” invites proposals for papers on gender issues relating to the production and use of inventions, broadly defined. Appropriate topics might include: gendered patterns in the history of invention or creation; gendered regulation of inventive activities; gendered models of individual and collective inventive activities; gendered aspects in licensing or assignment of technologies; and related subjects.

Introduction & Context

Over the past seven years, the IP/Gender symposium has provided a forum to examine and discuss research on gendered dimensions of intellectual property law. Because issues of gender in intellectual property have been under-appreciated and remain under-theorized, much of this work has been exploratory and pioneering. Topics discussed in past years have ranged from the impact of intellectual property law and policy on gender-related imbalances in wealth, cultural access, political power, and social control; creative production and gender; the effects of stereotyping and of actual and rhetorical feminization and masculinization of participant roles upon intellectual property stakeholders; the gendered development of IP doctrines and doctrinal categories; related issues in the teaching and practicing of intellectual property; feminist jurisprudential insights about intellectual property law; and female fan cultures and intellectual property.

We expect that the Spring 2010 symposium will again offer an opportunity to present and critique innovative research, related to the special theme, that is either currently underway or now under contemplation. As in previous years, we anticipate the program and the audience will be highly interdisciplinary, including historians, social scientists, legal academics, cultural scholars, and practicing lawyers bringing their disciplinary perspectives to bear on the theme. A limited number of spaces is available on the program. We would appreciate receiving abstracts by Monday, October 30, 2009. Papers will be selected for presentation and possible publication by November 15, 2009, and will be due by March 1, 2010. Please submit abstracts through the website identified below, and please contact any of us if you have questions. We would also be grateful if you would forward this notice to others you know to be working in or interested in this area. We look forward to hearing from you.

• Vicki Phillips, vfphillips@wcl.american.edu

• Josh Sarnoff, jsarnoff@wcl.american.edu

• Dan Burk, dburk@law.uci.edu

IP/Gender Mapping the Connections Organizational Details

• DEADLINE for submission of abstracts is OCTOBER 30, 2009 at 5:00pm Eastern Time US.

• To submit an abstract or project description for consideration, fill in the web-based form at https://www.wcl.american.edu/pijip/ipgender/proposals.cfm . Participants will be notified if their project has been accepted for presentation by November 15, 2009. For presenters, reasonable travel expenses may be provided if needed, subject to limitations on available funds.

• The symposium will begin at 6:00 pm Thursday, April 15, 2010 at the American University Washington College of Law in Washington, D.C. The symposium will convene from 9:00 am until 4:00 pm on Friday, April 16, 2010.

• To view programs from prior IP/Gender: Mapping the Connections symposia, please visit www.wcl.american.edu/pijip/go/events/ip/gender/ip/gender-mapping-the-connection

• Papers may be published in the American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law.