Intellectual Property Watch Welcomes Three New Board Members

With the start of a new era in providing high-quality global news and information, Intellectual Property Watch is proud to announce the addition of three distinguished and eminent experts in their fields as new members of the IP-Watch Board of Directors.

Joining the IP-Watch Board, which now grows from six to nine members, are Thomas Cottier, Bruno Lanvin and Jonathan Zittrain. Full bios of the nine Board members are on the IP-Watch website here.

“We are delighted and honoured to welcome Thomas Cottier, Bruno Lanvin and Jonathan Zittrain as new Board members,” said Carolyn Deere Birkbeck, IP-Watch’s Founder and Board Chair. “They each bring a wealth of experience and expertise in their fields and will be tremendous assets to Intellectual Property Watch as we continue our fine tradition of professional, independent reporting on global issues and challenges touched by international intellectual property law and policy.”

Intellectual Property Watch provides a vital public service to all those engaged in global policy debates on these areas – its reporting promotes transparency of the policymaking processes, mutual understanding and fosters more informed participation by all relevant actors, whether from governments, IGOs or stakeholder groups.

The new additions to the Board offer cutting-edge insights on issues of innovation, internet law and privacy and digital trade as well as a wealth of experience with multilateral organisations and international trade negotiations.

Nearing our 12th anniversary, Intellectual Property Watch is moving into an exciting new phase. We plan to further build our regional networks of journalists, boost our global readership and bolster coverage and analysis of issues at the forefront of global policy debates, while expanding news on national and regional policy debates with global relevance.

To further strengthen our Board, we are looking forward to announcing two more new Board members in the following months. Our focus will be on bringing additional regional expertise to our board as well as expertise on public health experience, donor relations, and digital media and journalism.

We look forward to the strategic guidance of our Board as we move into Intellectual Property Watch’s next phase.

IP-Watch is a non-profit association and its Board of Directors is comprised of individuals who serve in a personal and voluntary capacity. The Board plays a vital role in providing counsel and guidance on IP-Watch’s strategic direction and operations, while maintaining independence from its editorial activities.

Biographies of the New Board Members follow. The bios are also available on the IP-Watch website.

Thomas Cottier (Switzerland), former Managing Director of the World Trade Institute, is Professor Emeritus of European and International Economic Law at the University of Bern and adjunct professor of law at the University of Ottawa. He published widely in the field of international economic law, with a particular focus on constitutional theory and intellectual property. He held several positions in the Swiss External Economic Affairs Department and was the Deputy-Director General of the Swiss Intellectual Property Office. Prof. Cottier has a long-standing involvement in GATT / WTO activities. He served on the Swiss negotiating team of the Uruguay Round, first as Chief negotiator on dispute settlement and subsidies for Switzerland and subsequently as Chief negotiator on TRIPS. He chaired the EFTA negotiating committee on IPRs in EEA negotiations. He has served as a member or chair of several GATT and WTO panels and recently on a high level panel reviewing the International Health Regulations of the World Health Organization.

 

Bruno Lanvin (France) is the Executive Director of INSEAD’s Global Indices, comprising the Networked Readiness Index of the Global Information Technology Report (GITR), the Global Innovation Index (GII), and the Global Talent Competitiveness Index (GTCI). Before joining INSEAD, he worked ten years for the World Bank, where he was inter alia Senior Advisor for E-strategies, Regional Coordinator (Europe and Central Asia) for ICT and e-government issues, and Chairman of the Bank’s e‐Thematic Group. Before this, he held senior positions at the United Nations in New York and Geneva. Dr Lanvin holds a BA in Mathematics and Physics from the University of Valenciennes (France), an MBA from Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales (HEC) in Paris, and a PhD in Economics from the University of Paris I (La Sorbonne) in France. He is also an INSEAD alumnus (IDP-C). A frequent speaker at high‐level meetings, he advises a number of global companies and governments and has been a member of numerous boards, including those of IDA and Govtech (Singapore) and ICANN.

 

Jonathan Zittrain (United States) is the George Bemis Professor of International Law at Harvard Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Professor of Computer Science at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Director of the Harvard Law School Library, and co-founder of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Board of Advisors for Scientific American. His research focuses on the control of digital content, privacy, and the use of technology in education. He has co-edited a series of studies of Internet filtering by national governments entitled Access Denied: The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering; Access Controlled: The Shaping of Power, Rights, and Rule in Cyberspace; and Access Contested: Security, Identity, and Resistance in Asian Cyberspace, and is the author of The Future of the Internet – And How to Stop It. He is a former trustee of the Internet Society, a former Forum Fellow of the World Economic Forum, and was previously a Distinguished Scholar-In-Residence at the Federal Communications Commission.

 

Image Credits: Jon Chase/Harvard Staff Photographer