A Visit to the EIPIN Congress
RC Tetsuya Imamura
I had an opportunity to be specially allowed to attend one session of the 11th EIPIN Congress in London the other day. The EIPIN stands for European Intellectual Property Institutes Network, which was initiated in 1999 to increase cooperation among IP institutions and students in Europe (*1). The current EIPIN members are:
>Centre for International Intellectual Property (CEIPI) at the University of Strasbourg
>Magister Lucentinvs at the University of Alicante
>MAS in Intellectual Property, ETH Zurich
>Queen Mary Intellectual Property Research Institute London
>Munich Intellectual Property Law Center, MIPLC, LL.M. Program
This Congress was established for students who belong to these five institutions and consists of a series of lectures for the students who major in intellectual property law. This time, more than 50 students as well as teachers and staffs attended from these member organizations. The Congress is not opened to the public because it is an educational program for the students of the member organizations. A series of lectures were delivered by university teaching faculties invited from various countries, mainly from the host institution. In addition to the lectures, various events are prepared to facilitate mutual exchange among graduate students.
In Japan, there are also similar efforts for graduate students in the field of intellectual property (for example, a symposium held by KYUSHU UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL OF LAW INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMS in February 2010(*2)). However, there seems to be no such postgraduate educational program like the one that the EIPIN conducts by a network across universities of such a scale. Also, the EIPIN is an international network in Europe. There should be a similar network with universities in Asian countries if we say there is a similar program in Japan.
Although it must take much effort and time to establish such a program, the exchange and learning through the program will be surely beneficial for the students who have an important role in various ways to facilitate the development of intellectual property law of this generation. If we establish an international network of education beyond the domestic programs, there are relatively many challenges to be solved in Asia due to further language barrier and economic discrepancy than Europe. However, I believe that a new phase for cooperation between Waseda and Asia is awaiting ahead of the works to resolve challenges as such.
(*1) EIPIN homepage: http://www.eipin.org/
(*2) http://www.law.kyushu-u.ac.jp/programsinenglish/conference2010/
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