In October 2008 the Oxford Intellectual Property Research Centre (OIPRC) became a Centre of the Oxford Law Faculty, taking its place alongside an increasing number of multidisciplinary centres.

The OIPRC was established in 1990 at St Peter’s College by Faculty member Peter Hayward, with an £85,000 gift from the Hitachi Foundation. In its first six years it was essentially a library, and then in 1995/6 it developed a visitors’ programme and multidisciplinary (law and economics) research agenda.

In 1998 Peter Hayward retired, and Professor Vaver was appointed to a Professorial Fellowship at St Peter’s and made Director of the Centre. The Centre’s website, seminar series, and electronic journal were established in the same year, followed in 2002/3 by its Mock Trial and International IP Moot. These events have grown in the years since, with the Moot in particular earning a well-deserved place on the international IP scene.

The Centre’s move to the Faculty represents a wonderful opportunity for consolidation and growth, both for the Centre itself and IP at Oxford more generally. The precise nature and direction of that growth will emerge once Professor Vaver’s successor, Professor Graeme Dinwoodie of Chicago-Kent College of Law, takes up the Chair in Intellectual Property Law (and Directorship of the Centre) in June 2009.

Link(s)

Oxford Intellectual Property Research Centre
Interested in this subject? View our Intellectual Property page.

published Wednesday 1 October 2008