2015 Sir Hugh Laddie Lecture

Speaker: Judge Alex Kozinski
Chair: The Rt. Hon. Professor Sir Robin Jacob
Title: IP and Advocacy

Alex Kozinski has been a judge at the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit since 1985, making him the youngest federal appeals court judge at the time of appointment. In 2007, he was promoted to Chief Judge. Among his notable cases in the field of Intellectual Property is his dissent in White v Samsung Electronics America. He said: “Overprotecting intellectual property is as harmful as underprotecting it. Creativity is impossible without a rich public domain. Nothing today, likely nothing since we tamed fire, is genuinely new: Culture, like science and technology, grows by accretion, each new creator building on the works of those who came before. Overprotection stifles the very creative forces it's supposed to nurture". Kozinski is also well known for his special ability to lace humour in to his judgements. In Mattel v MCA Records, in regard to a lawsuit filed by MCA Records (the record company of pop-group, Aqua), Kozinski wrote in his concluding remarks: “the parties are advised to chill”.