Intellectual Property in Africa Is the Focus of First Talk in Bookit Ip Series at IIT Chicago-Kent

IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law's Program in Intellectual Property Law will launch its 2014–15 BookIT intellectual property book talk series on September 8 with a discussion of two groundbreaking books on innovation and intellectual property in Africa. Programs in the series, which are free and open to the public, will be held at the law school, 565 West Adams Street (between Clinton and Jefferson streets) in Chicago.

University of Ottawa Professor Jeremy de Beer will discuss Innovation & Intellectual Property: Collaborative Dynamics in Africa and Knowledge & Innovation in Africa: Scenarios for the Future, both published in 2013 by the Open African Innovation Research and Training Project (Open A.I.R.). Professor de Beer's talk will begin at noon in room 370.

"Our BookIT talks are designed to present new and thought-provoking work by authors and researchers in the area of intellectual property, law and technology, or the Internet," said IIT Chicago-Kent Professor Edward Lee, director of the Program in Intellectual Property Law. "We are pleased to have Professor de Beer as the inaugural speaker for our series."

Other programs in the book talk series include:

• October 2, 2014, at noon in room 370: University of Pittsburgh School of Law Professor Michael J. Madison on Governing Knowledge Commons (Brett M. Frischmann, Michael J. Madison & Katherine J. Strandburg eds.) (forthcoming, Oxford University Press, 2014)
• November 10, 2014, at noon in room 370: Suffolk University Law School Professor Jessica Silbey on The Eureka Myth: Creators, Innovators and Everyday Intellectual Property (forthcoming, Stanford University Press, 2014)
• February 23, 2015: Washington University School of Law Professor Neil Richards on Intellectual Privacy: Rethinking Civil Liberties in the Digital Age (forthcoming, Oxford University Press, 2015)
• April 27, 2015: Professor Irene Calboli of Marquette University Law School and the National University of Singapore on Diversity in Intellectual Property: Identities, Interests, and Intersections (Irene Calboli & Srividhya Ragavan eds.) (forthcoming, Cambridge University Press, 2015)

IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law is the law school of Illinois Institute of Technology, also known as Illinois Tech, a private, technology-focused, research university offering undergraduate and graduate degrees in engineering, science, architecture, business, design, human sciences, applied technology, and law. In the most recent U.S. News & World Report law school rankings (March 2014), Chicago-Kent's Program in Intellectual Property Law was ranked 10th in the country-the highest-ranked intellectual property program in the Midwest.