| DAY | TIME |
| Thursday, october 28th, 2021 | 14:00 (UTC-5) / 19:00 (UTC) |
Ruth L. Okediji is the Jeremiah Smith Jr. Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and co-Director of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society. Professor Okediji teaches contracts and law and technology courses, including patents, copyright, and international intellectual property law. She also teaches courses in Biblical Law.
Professor Okediji’s research and scholarship focus on intellectual property concerning access to essential medicines, local production of pharmaceutical products, and access to knowledge. She is a Director with Harvard’s Global Access in Action (GAiA), a program that works with firms and governments on policies that promote access to lifesaving medicines and alternative incentives to develop medical treatments for underserved populations.
Professor Okediji has authored an extensive array of articles, commissioned papers, and book chapters on international intellectual property, copyright, multilateral trade, and indigenous innovation. Her published books include a seminal casebook on International Patent Law and Policy (with Margo Bagley, Aspen Law, 2013, 2nd edition forthcoming, 2022). In 2014, she co-edited (with Mario Cimoli, Giovanni Dosi, Keith Maskus, Jerome Reichman, and Joseph Stiglitz) a volume on Intellectual Property Rights: Legal and Economic Challenges for Development (Oxford University Press, 2014), Global Perspectives on Patent Law (with Margo Bagley) (Oxford University Press in 2015), and Copyright Law in an Age of Limitations and Exceptions (Cambridge University Press, 2017). Her next book, Traditional Knowledge and Modern Justice, is forthcoming in 2023.
Professor Okediji has served as a policy advisor to many inter-governmental organizations, regional economic communities, and national governments to formulate copyright and patent policies, government use of data, and regulation of pharmaceutical drugs. She is recognized internationally and widely cited for her work on designing and implementing intellectual property law and its impact on human development indicators for health and education.
In 2015, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed Professor Okediji to his High-Level Panel on Access to Medicines. In the same year, she was named by Managing IP as one of the world’s 50 most influential people in intellectual property law.
Professor Okediji was a member of the National Academies Board on Science, Technology and Policy Committee on the Impact of Copyright Policy on Innovation in the Digital Era (2011-2012), and she served as Co-Chair on the National Academies Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy Committee on Advancing Commercialization from the Federal Laboratories (2020-2021).
Over the course of her career, Professor Okediji has been recognized with numerous teaching and service awards such as the Stanley V. Kinyon Tenured Professor Award for the best-tenured professor, the Professor Most Likely to Go Beyond the Call of Duty, the Regents Superior Teaching Award, the Student Bar Association’s Outstanding Professor Award, Harvard Law School’s Women’s Law Association Shatter the Ceiling Award (twice), and an honoree of International Women’s Law Day. She is the 2019 recipient of the Public Knowledge IP3 Award.