Justine Pila

Professor of Law

Biography

 

St Catherine's webpage here.

Justine Pila came to Oxford in 2004 to take up her posts in the Law Faculty and St Catherine's College. Until 2024 she was also a Professor (part-time) at the University of Bergen.

Her research interests cover the fields of intellectual property, regulation, and law and technology. She is the author of two research monographs – The Requirement for an Invention in Patent Law (OUP 2010) and The Subject Matter of Intellectual Property (OUP) – and of two text books – European Intellectual Property Law (1st edn OUP 2016 and 2nd edn OUP 2019, with PLC Torremans) and Seville's Intellectual Property Law and Policy (3rd end EE 2022, in press). She is also the editor of several published collections, including The Oxford Handbook of Intellectual Property Law (OUP 2018, with RC Dreyfuss).

At Oxford, Professor Pila co-chairs the 'Health, Law and Emerging Technologies' Research Group with Professor Jane Kaye, and is a Research Fellow at the Institute of European and Comparative Law. She is also a Fellow at St Catherine's College, where she offers tutorials and acts as College Counsel and Secretary to the Governing Body.

Justine's teaching covers her areas of research. At graduate level she convenes and teaches the Faculty's Law, Regulation and Technology seminars for the BCL/MJur Regulation course and the BCL/MJur Comparative Copyright course. She also teaches IP, and Law and Technology, on a number of other courses for the Faculty, and EU Law and Jurisprudence for her College. She always has several DPhil and other higher research students working in these and other fields, and has supervised many such students over the course of her career.

In an earlier life Professor Pila took undergraduate degrees in Law and Arts at the University of Melbourne, worked as an IP solicitor and Associate to the Chief Justice of the Australian Federal Court, and completed a PhD in Law, with a thesis on Patents, also at the University of Melbourne.

Publications

Research Interests

The law and theory of IP, especially copyright law and patent law, and including European intellectual property.

Law and technology, especially the regulatory challenges and opportunities of advanced digital and bio technologies.

Research projects & programmes

Law and Technology Research Group