Ruth Okediji

William L. Prosser Professor of Law

Ruth Okediji

438 Mondale Hall
229–19th Ave. South
Minneapolis, MN 55455

612-625-6475

rokediji@umn.edu

University of Jos, LL.B.
Harvard Law School, LL.M., S.J.D.

Professor Ruth Okediji is one of the leading authorities in the United States on International Intellectual Property Law. After visiting at the University of Minnesota in 2001, Professor Okediji joined the Minnesota faculty in the 2002-2003 academic year. She served on the faculty at the University of Oklahoma College of Law from 1994 to 2002, where she held the Edith Kinney Gaylord Presidential Professorship.

Professor Okediji's scholarship focuses primarily on international intellectual property issues with an emphasis on the relationship between multilateral trade law and intellectual property policy. Her work addresses the relationship between developing and developed countries in the international intellectual property system, including economic analysis of the bargaining strategies that facilitate harmonization of intellectual property rights.

In addition to intellectual property, Professor Okediji has taught contracts, employment law and international trade. She has earned numerous teaching awards and citations for scholarship and service to the community. From 1999-2000 Professor Okediji chaired the University of Oklahoma Faculty Senate. In 2002, Governor Frank Keating appointed her to the Oklahoma Public Employee Relations Board. She is the immediate past-Chair of the AALS Section of Law and Computers, and Chair-Elect of the AALS Section on Intellectual Property.

Professor Okediji received her LL.B. in 1989 from the University of Jos, and LL.M. and S.J.D. degrees from Harvard Law School in 1991 and 1996, respectively. She is a member of the New York Bar Association, the American Bar Association, Order of the Coif, and the Ruth Bader Ginsburg Inns of Court.

PUBLICATIONS

Books

10 Global Perspectives on Patent Law (Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2010) (with Margo Bagley & Jay Erstling)

Global Perspectives on Intellectual Property Law (Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2010)

Copyright in a Global Information Economy (Aspen Law & Business, 1st ed., 2002; 2d ed., 2006) (with Julie Cohen, Lydia Loren & Maureen O'Rourke)

Book Chapters

Contours of an International Instrument on Limitations and Exceptions, in The Development Agenda: Global Intellectual Property and Developing Countries (Neil Weinstock Netanel, ed., Oxford University Press, 2009) (with P. Bernt Hugenholtz)

History Lessons for the WIPO Development Agenda, in The Development Agenda: Global Intellectual Property and Developing Countries (Neil Weinstock Netanel, ed., Oxford University Press, 2009)

An Enduring Legacy for the Knowledge Economy: UNESCO and the International Copyright System, in Standard-Setting in UNESCO: Normative Action in Education, Science and Culture (Abdulqawi A. Yusuf, ed., Martinus Nijhoff, 2007)

Securing Intellectual Property Objectives: New Approaches to Human Rights Considerations, in Casting the Net Wider: Human Rights, Development and New Duty-Bearers (Margot E. Salomon, Arne Tostensen & Wouter Vandenhole, eds., Intersentia, 2007)

The Limits of Development Strategies at the Intersection of Intellectual Property and Human Rights, in Intellectual Property, Trade & Development: Strategies to Optimize Economic Development in a TRIPS-Plus Era (Daniel J. Gervais, ed., Oxford University Press, 2007)

Multiple chapters on Copyright (Copyright Works; Copyright: Computer Programs; Copyright: Databases; Copyright: The Rental Right; Copyright: Term of Protection; Copyright: Limitations and Exceptions; and Copyright: Related Rights), in United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development/UNCTAD-ICSTD, Resource Book on TRIPS and Development (Cambridge University Press, 2005) (contributor)

Rules of Power in an Age of Law: Process Opportunism and TRIPs Dispute Settlement, in Handbook of International Trade, Vol. 2, Economic and Legal Analyses of Trade Policy and Institutions (Eun Kwan Choi & James Hartigan, eds., Blackwell, 2005)

Sustainable Access to Digital Informational Works, in International Public Goods and Transfer of Technology under a Globalized Intellectual Property Regime (Keith E. Maskus & Jerome H. Reichman, eds., Cambridge University Press, 2005)

Journal Articles

The Regulation of Creativity under the WIPO Internet Treaties, 77 Fordham Law Review 2379 (2009)

IP Essentialism and the Authority of the Firm, 117 Yale Law Journal Pocket Part 274 (2008)

WIPO-WTO Relations and the Future of Global Intellectual Property Norms, 39 Netherlands Yearbook of International Law 69 (2008)

The International Intellectual Property Roots of Geographical Indications, 82 Chicago-Kent Law Review 1329 (2007)

Africa and the Global Intellectual Property System: Beyond the Agency Model, 12 African Yearbook of International Law 207 (2004)

Back to Bilateralism? Pendulum Swings in International Intellectual Property Agreements, 1 University of Ottawa Law & Technology Journal 125 (2004)

The Institutions of Intellectual Property: New Trends in an Old Debate, 98 Proceedings of the American Society of International Law 219 (2004)

Through the Years: The Supreme Court and the Copyright Clause, 30 William Mitchell Law Review 1633 (2004)

Balancing Acts: Antitrust for Economic Development, 48 Antitrust Bulletin 921 (2003)

Public Welfare and the Role of the WTO: Reconsidering the TRIPs Agreement, 17 Emory International Law Review 819 (2003)

The International Relations of Intellectual Property: Narratives of Developing Country Participation in the Global Intellectual Property System, 7 Singapore Journal of International & Comparative Law 315 (2003)

Trading Posts in Cyberspace: Information Markets and the Construction of Proprietary Rights, 44 Boston College Law Review 545 (2003)

Givers, Takers, and Other Kinds of Users: A Fair Use Doctrine for Cyberspace, 53 Florida Law Review 107 (2001)

TRIPs Dispute Settlement and the Sources of (International) Copyright Law, 49 Journal of the Copyright Society of the U.S.A. 585 (2001)

Toward an International Fair Use Standard, 39 Columbia Journal of Transnational Law 75 (2000)

Copyright and Public Welfare in Global Perspective, 7 Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 117 (1999)

Status Rules: Doctrine as Discrimination in a Post-Hicks Environment, 26 Florida State University Law Review 49 (1998)

Prospects for Developing Countries Under the TRIPs Agreement, 29 Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law 735 (1996)

The Myth of Development, the Progress of Rights: Human Rights to Intellectual Property and Development, 18 Law & Policy 315 (1996)

Two Steps Forward: Reconciling Nigeria's Accession to The Berne Convention and the TRIPs Agreement, 27 International Review of Industrial Property and Copyright Law 476 (1996)

Has Creativity Died in The Third World? Some Implications of the Internationalization of Intellectual Property, 24 Denver Journal of International Law and Policy 109 (1995)

Which "Self"? Race and Gender in the Right to Self-Determination as a Prerequisite to the Right to Development, 14 Wisconsin International Law Journal 133 (1995)

U.S. Science Policy and the International Transfer of Technology, 3 Journal of Transnational Law & Policy 205 (1994)

Profiteering from Life and Death: Intellectual Property and the Pharmaceutical Industry in Emerging Economies: A Nigerian Case Study, 2:1 Intellectual Property Law: An International Analytical Journal 7 (1993)

International Institutions, 1 The Globalist (Oklahoma Bar Association, Section on International Law) (1992)

International Trade, 1 The Globalist (Oklahoma Bar Association, Section on International Law) (1991)

Documents and Reports

Conceiving an International Instrument on Limitations and Exceptions to Copyright (Open Society Institute, 2008) (commissioned monograph) (with P. Bernt Hugenholz)

The International Copyright System: Limitations, Exceptions and Public Interest Considerations for Developing Countries (UNCTAD-ICTSD Project on IPRs and Sustainable Development, 2006) (commissioned monograph)

Development in the Information Age: Issues in the Regulation of Intellectual Property Rights, Computer Software and Electronic Commerce, (UNCTAD-ICTSD Project on IPRs and Sustainable Development, 2004) (commissioned monograph)

Book Reviews & Review Essays

Book Note, 6 Harvard Journal of Law & Technology 429 (1993) (reviewing Technology Transfer in International Business (Tamir Agmon & Mary Ann Young Von Glinow, eds., Oxford University Press, 1991))

COURSES

Courses

Contracts
Copyright
Trademarks
International IP
Employment Law
Patents

Seminars

Regulatory Issues in Employment Law