Silke von Lewinski

SILKE von LEWINSKI is tenured at the Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property, Munich and specialises in international and European copyright law. She is also Adjunct Professor at Franklin Pierce Center for IP at the University of New Hampshire Law School, Concord, N.H., USA.

S. von Lewinski frequently has been an expert consulting the European Commission, eg on the EC Rental Rights Directive (drafting of EC proposal and steering it through legislative process), and regarding the WIPO Diplomatic Conference 1996 (preparation, and member of the EC delegation). At the WIPO Diplomatic Conference 2000 on Audiovisual Performances, she was a delegate for Germany. She has been the chief legal expert consulting the governments of Eastern and Central European and former Soviet countries on their copyright legislation in the framework of the initial EC’s TA programs from 1995 and works under subsequent programs, including in Asia.

Numerous publications and lectures worldwide have focussed on copyright law, primarily international and European. Her recent book publications include “The WIPO Treaties 1996” (London 2002, Chinese edn. 2008 with Renmin University Press, with Reinbothe), the treatise “International Copyright Law and Policy” (OUP, 2008, Chinese edn. in preparation), and, with MM Walter et al., “European Copyright Law” (OUP, 25 March 2010); she edited “Indigenous Heritage and Intellectual Property: Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore” (Kluwer, 2004, 2nd edn. 2008; Chinese edn. in preparation), and “Copyright throughout the World” (West, 2008, with annual updates).

Dr. von Lewinski is an Adjunct Professor also at the Munich Intellectual Property Law Center (separately and combined with GWU’s summer program), Munich, since 2003; she was so at Zurich (ETH), McGill University, Montréal, and others. She has been a visiting professor at many universities worldwide, including Paris XI, Toulouse 1; Université Laval, Québec, and University of Melbourne. She was the first Walter Minton Visiting Scholar at Columbia University School of Law, New York; the First Distinguished Visitor to the Intellectual Property Research Institute of Australia (IPRIA); and The Hosier Distinguished Visiting IP Scholar, DePaul University, Chicago, July 2005. In 1999, she was a judge at the German Final Round of the International Philip C. Jessup Moot Court Competition.

University degree in law: Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich; Bar Exam: Munich; degree of Doctor iuris (PhD): Free University Berlin; “Heinrich-Hubmann” award, in the year of its establishment, for the best treaties in copyright.

Membership includes: ATRIP, Executive Committee of ALAI international, Vice President of ALAI’s German group, Advisory Council of IP (ACIP) at Franklin Pierce Center for IP; Editorial Board of the Journal of the Copyright Society of the USA; International Editoral Board of “Les Cahiers de la Propriété Intellectuelle”, Canada, Editorial Advisory Board, Cardozo Intellectual Property and Technology Law Series, Editorial Board of Lagos State University Law Journal.

Languages: German, English, French (fluent). Italian; Passive: Dutch, Swedish, Spanish etc.