Write On! Gender, culture, IP

(Write On! is an occasional item about notable calls for papers)

Organizers are seeking papers on "gender and the production of traditional cultural knowledge" for the 8th Annual Symposium on IP/Gender: Mapping the Connections, to be held in D.C. on April 1, 2011, by the Program on Information Justice & Intellectual Propert, the Women and the Law Program, and the Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law, all at American University Washington College of Law. The special theme for this year's symposium is Gender and Traditional Cultural Expressions.

The full call for papers takes note of a relevant, 2010 initiative by the World Intellectual Property Organization, then states that such

developments have given new prominence to the question of what useful role intellectual property may play in correcting underlying historical imbalances. In many places, women are deemed to be the most important practitioners and custodians of certain old arts, with many cultural 'traditions' being passed primarily or exclusively from one generation of women to the next. Therefore, the consequences of introducing IP regimes in this area may have special significance for women and their communities, or may reflect underlying assumptions about gender, women's proper role in decolonization and development, and the distributive consequences of IP regimes. This workshop seeks to examine those questions in the context of the larger discussion about propertization of traditional cultural expressions.

The deadline for submission of 500-word abstracts, outlining papers or works in progress in line with the topics set forth in the full call, has been extended to February 18, 2011.

Details, including the full call for papers and a submission form, are here.

On June 1

On this day in ...
... 1660, in North America, the British colony of Massachusetts hanged Mary Dyer because she was a Quaker. Dyer and her husband William had immigrated there, from England, around 1635. The couple were supporters of religious dissident Anne Hutchinson, and Mary accompanied Anne out of church when the latter was excommunicated in 1638; the Dyers then moved with Hutchinson to Rhode Island. In her final return to Massachusetts, Dyer "deliberately challenged the legal right ... to carry out the death penalty."
... 2000, the Patent Law Treaty was adopted at Geneva, Switzerland. "Its aim is to harmonise the formal requirements set by patent offices for granting patents, and to streamline the procedures for obtaining and maintaining a patent." Today the treaty has 53 contracting parties; the United States is not among them. It is administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization.

On April 26

On this day in ...
... 1998 (10 years ago today), 75-year-old Juan Gerardi Conedera, a Roman Catholic Bishop, was fatally bludgeoned in Guatemala City, Guatemala. His death occurred 2 days after he issued Nunca Más (Never Again), his "scathing report on human rights violations committed during the country's 36-year civil war." In June 2001, a Guatemalan court sentenced to 30 years in prison the retired colonel, the captain, and the sergeant whom it had convicted of the murder. (photo credit: Bishop Gerardi's funeral procession)
... 2008 (today), is celebrated the 8th annual World Intellectual Property Day. It was founded by the group responsible for monitoring global developments in intellectual property, aptly named the World Intellectual Property Organization, or WIPO. Its Director General, Kamil Idris, states, with good reason:

The man or woman in the street might wonder just what makes intellectual property worth all this effort. What, they might ask, do the workings of copyrights, patents, industrial designs or trademarks have to do with the really big issues, like how to stop global warming; or with the things that add spice to life, like watching their favorite athletes perform in this year’s Olympics?

His answer:

The answer is that, without intellectual property rights, many new technologies developed to tackle global problems would never see the light of day and the great sporting events, which entertain and unite us, would not be broadcast into homes across the globe.

And for that reason, he concludes:

[O]n World Intellectual Property Day, we pay tribute to the inventors and artists, great and small, who enrich our existence with the fruits of their innovative thoughts and creative vision.

On October 21, ...

... 1977 (30 years ago today) , a regulation of the Administrative Council of the European Patent Organisation entered into force, thus establishing the European Patent Institute, designed to promote the work of the Organisation and compliance with its rules among professionals in the patent industry. Today the Institute, based in Munich, Germany, comprises 8,700 members in 32 European countries.
... 1867 (140 years ago today), 2 peoples indigenous the United States' Great Plains, the Kiowa and Comanche, signed with the United States an accord called the Medicine Lodge Treaty (right). Other tribes added their signatures within days. An Oklahoma museum site portrays the pact as the end of native sovereignty in the region:

The Medicine Lodge Treaty did not end all the fighting. But it is known as the most important treaty signed on the Southern Plains. The Indians gave up their hunting grounds and their nomadic, carefree way of life. Some lived through the fighting and accepted life on the reservation. Others died for what they believed in.

In stark contrast, a Library of Congress site stresses promises of peace in the treaty, and adds:

Today, the treaty is celebrated every three years with a colorful outdoor pageant re-enacting the events that led to the signing at the place where the Medicine River and Elm Creek meet on the Kansas prairie, now designated Memorial Peace Park. Events also include an Intertribal Powwow featuring Native American dance competitions, crafts, and food booths.

On September 10, ...

... 1886, the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works was adopted in Switzerland. It rests on 3 baseline principles: 1st, national treatment, by which works originating in any member state must be given the same protection in every other member state as the latter gives the works of its own nationals; 2d, automatic protection; and 3d, independence of protection. With 163 states parties, today this copyright convention is 1 of 24 treaties administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), a specialized agency of the United Nations.
... 1949, U.S. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-Ohio) was born in Cleveland, Ohio.