On 7 May 2024, Professor Caroline Ncube, the DST/NRF SARChI Research Chair of Intellectual Property, Innovation and Development at the University of Cape Town, delivered the second annual ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ Bill Cornish Memorial Lecture: ““Intellectual Property norms in the Polycrisis – (Still) Omnipresent, Distracting, Irrelevant?””. Professor Uma Suthersanen (Queen Mary University of London) acted as discussant.
The Bill Cornish Memorial lecture series has been established as an annual event by ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ academics Dr Martin Husovec and Dr Luke McDonagh to honour the late Professor Bill Cornish who passed away in 2022. In the coming years, the lecture series will continue to feature eminent scholars who, like Prof Cornish, have contributed to the study of authorship, creativity, innovation and IP ownership. During the late 1960s Prof Cornish pioneered the teaching of Intellectual Property Law at ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳, becoming the progenitor of intellectual property law scholarship and teaching in the United Kingdom. He spent nearly 30 years at the ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ between 1962 and 1990, from 1970 as a Professor of English Law. His work combined his deep knowledge of English legal history and intellectual property law, with a European and law-in-context outlook on the regulation of markets and technologies.
The text of Prof Ncube’s lecture is available here.