Kevin Szeto, JD '21, Windsor Law
Windsor Law has been invited to participate in the 18th Annual Oxford International Intellectual Property Law Moot. Windsor Law will be competing against 27 other law schools from across the globe on March 19 to March 21, 2020.
The team members pictured above (left to right): Michelle Vinitsky (3L), Alethea Song (3L), Flora Wu (3L), and their coach, Professor Wissam Aoun, will be travelling to the University of Oxford in England to compete in this distinguished moot. The moot consists of four preliminary rounds, followed by a quarter-finals, semi-finals and a grand final round.
This year’s problem tackles issues around patent licensing, copyright infringement, and trademark assignment issues. Set in the fictitious common law jurisdiction of Erewhon, the companies Hotenhoffer Pharmaceuticals Erewhon (“HPE”), and Hotenhoffer Lilliput (“HL”), are appealing a compulsory licence that was granted to the Republic of Erewhon (“Government”). This licence is for an expensive pharmaceutical cystic fibrosis drug that HPE and HL developed. Furthermore, the Government is investigating the corporate practices of these two companies. Given the fact that there was an irregular trademark assignment between HPE and HL for $1, the government believes this was done for tax evasion purposes. Documents related to these practices were leaked by a whistleblower and subsequently disclosed by the Government. The issue centers around whether the release of the documents is caught by the quotation exception or a general public interest defence to copyright infringement. In addition, the Government is also seeking to cancel the company’s trademark on the basis that the marks have become deceptive.
Given the unique international context of this Moot, the team leaned heavily on the support of the fantastic Windsor Law Library staff to access Foreign Law resources. Their coach also provided immeasurable support to help with the understanding of fundamental IP law principles. The team thanks them for their support and contributions.
We congratulate this year’s excellent team on their achievement and wish them the best of luck in the oral rounds this coming March!