2024 THE JOHN McLAREN EMMERSON QC ESSAY PRIZE
The Intellectual Property Society of Australia and New Zealand Inc. is pleased to announce details for its 2024 competition for an essay on a topic of the author’s choice regarding intellectual property.
IPSANZ Prize : The John McLaren Emmerson QC Essay Prize
Past Prize Winners
2023 THE JOHN McLAREN EMMERSON QC ESSAY PRIZE
The Intellectual Property Society of Australia and New Zealand Inc’s John McLaren Emmerson QC Essay Prize was not awarded in 2023. Commendations were received by Graeme Fearon for his paper ‘This Play Wot AI Wrote’ – Intellectual Property Protection of AI-Generated Works’; Mathieu Bazin for his paper ‘Leveraging Intellectual Property to Deliver Defence Capability: A ‘Dual-Outcome’ Approach’ and Cormac Mercer for his paper ‘What are the implications of artificial technologies on intellectual property protections for Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander artists and communities?’
2022 The John McLaren Emmerson QC Essay Prize
The Intellectual Property Society of Australia and New Zealand Inc. is pleased to advise that the Honourable Justice Burley awarded the top entries of the 2022 The John McLaren Emmerson QC Essay Prize on Saturday 17th September 2022 at the President’s Dinner at the 2022 35th Annual Conference. Our winners revealed, were :
1st Prize
David Kwei, Epiphany Law, Melbourne
His paper entitled “A Judge’s Breakfast: Legal Tests for the Liability of Directors in IP Infringements”
2nd Prize
Emma Berry of Dentons, Melbourne
Her paper entitled “Incidental Copyright Infringement In Modern Content Creation: An Analysis Of The Gaps In The Infringement Exception In Section 67 Of The Copyright Act 1968”
3rd Prize
Jessie Shu lawyer at Griffith Hack, Sydney
Her paper entitled “I’m Not Lovin’ It – The Seemingly Insurmountable Obstacles Facing Trade Mark Registration of Slogan Marks”
2021 The John McLaren Emmerson QC Essay Prize
The Intellectual Property Society of Australia and New Zealand Inc. is pleased to advise that the Honourable Justice Burley awarded the winners of the 2021 The John McLaren Emmerson QC Essay Prize.
Unfortunately, due to Covid19, our winners were unable to be personally presented with their Prizes, which is usually awarded at the Society’s Annual Conference. This year, the Honourable Justice Burley presented the awards by virtual Presentation to our winners on 12 September 2021.
1st Prize – Katrina Dang, Sydney
Her paper entitled “A National Approach for the Protection of Indigenous Cultural Intellectual Property in Australia: Lessons from International Regimes”
2nd Prize – Virginia Morrison, Sydney
Her paper entitled “Pipes or publishers? The copyright responsibility of digital platforms in a world of user-generated and self-serve content”
Equal 3rd Prize – Daniel Anstey and Phoebe Chester
Daniel Anstey, Sydney
His paper entitled “Token Value – How do Non-Fungible Tokens fit into Australian Copyright Law?”
Phoebe Chester, Sydney
Her paper entitled “Big Copyright Energy: How Online Content Creators Making Memes Could Use Copyright Law to Protect Their Work”
2020 The John McLaren Emmerson QC Essay Prize
The Intellectual Property Society of Australia and New Zealand Inc. is pleased to advise that the Honourable Justice Burley awarded the winners of the 2020 The John McLaren Emmerson QC Essay Prize. Unfortunately, due to Covid19, our winners were unable to be personally presented with their Prizes, which is usually awarded at the Society’s Annual Conference. This year, the Honourable Justice Burley presented the awards by virtual Presentation to our winners on 7 October 2020.
1st Prize – Brandon Hayes and Julius Hattingh both of Auckland, as co-authors
Their paper was entitled “The Sound of Silence – the omission of moral rights of the sound engineer in New Zealand”
2nd Prize – Ben Mee, Sydney
His paper was entitled ”Out of the Woods Defining and navigating patent thickets in Australia”
3rd Prize – Chelsea Wong and Thomas Huthwaite both of Auckland, as co-authors
Their paper was entitled “Finding Harmony between ‘commonplace’ and ‘copyright’: A sound Legal approach to borrowing in popular music”
2019 The John McLaren Emmerson QC Essay Prize
The Intellectual Property Society of Australia and New Zealand Inc. is pleased to advise that the winners were announced at the 33rd Annual Conference scheduled to be held 6 – 8 September 2019 at the Sofitel Noosa Pacific Resort, Queensland.
1st Prize – Claire Gregg, New South Wales
Her paper was entitled “Making Sense of the ‘Best Method’ Mess”
2nd Prize – Anna Harley, New South Wales
Her paper was entitled “Computer says “no” – is the Australian approach to the patentability of computer-related inventions fit for the future or is it time to reconsider?”
3rd Prize – Danielle Sharplin, Victoria
Her paper was entitled “Copyrightability of artificial intelligence and computer generated works: the law on “authorship” from a global context”
2018 The John McLaren Emmerson QC Essay Prize
The Intellectual Property Society of Australia and New Zealand Inc. is pleased to announce the winners of the 2018 competition.
1st Prize – Bethany Larum, New South Wales
Her paper was entitled “The Fearless Girl and the Charging Bull: Does Public Art Wave a Red Flag for Moral Rights”
2nd Prize – David Koedyk, New Zealand
His paper was entitled “Actavis in the Antipodes – a doctrine of equivalents for New Zealand?”
3rd Prize – Eloise Chin, New Zealand
Her paper was entitled “Robot vs Rightsholder: Machine Learning and Copyright in the Film and Television Industries”
2017 The John McLaren Emmerson QC Essay Prize
The Intellectual Property Society of Australia and New Zealand Inc. is pleased to announce the winners of the 2017 competition.
1st Prize – Antonia Modkova and Hemma Vara, New Zealand
Their paper was entitled “The Robot Revolution – Reinventing Inventorship”
2nd Prize – Claire Gregg, New South Wales
Her paper was entitled “PTEs for “Swiss-style” Claims: Nuance or Nuisance?”
3rd Prize – Jocelyn Bosse, Queensland
Her paper was entitled “Keep It Secret, Keep It Safe” – Patent Law And Threats To National Security”
2016 The John McLaren Emmerson QC Essay Prize
The Intellectual Property Society of Australia and New Zealand Inc. is pleased to announce the winners of the 2016 competition.
1st Prize – Tim Stirrup, New Zealand
His paper was entitled “Bioprospecting, the Nagoya Protocol and indigenous rights: A New Zealand perspective”
2nd Prize – Jenny Wong, New South Wales
Her paper was entitled “Data Protection for Biologics –Should the Data Exclusivity Period be Increased to 12 years?”
3rd Prize – Andrew Clarke, Queensland
His paper was entitled “Global Patentability of Genetic Material: Is it Time for an Intervention?”
2015 IPSANZ PRIZE COMPETITION renamed to The John McLaren Emmerson QC Essay Prize
The Intellectual Property Society of Australia and New Zealand Inc. is pleased to announce the winners of the 2015 competition.
1st Prize – Tania Cheng-Davies
Her paper was entitled “Can a Work of Art Be Destroyed Under Copyright Law?”
2nd Prize – Sandy Zhang
His paper was entitled “Digital Copyright : Beyond a Legal Outlook”.
3rd Prize – Sadaat Cheema
His paper was entitled “Catch me If You Can: The Legal Implications of the Dallas Buyers Club Decision for End Users, ISPs and Account-Holders”
2014
1st Prize – Claire Gregg
Her paper was entitled “The Myriad dichotomy: A tale of two jurisdictions”
2nd Prize – Nicholas Tobias
His paper was entitled “Contributory Infringement of Patents in Australia: Evolution, Interpretation and Issues”.
3rd Prize – Sam Hallahan
His paper was entitled “Entitlement issues under the Designs Act 2003 for employee-created designs”
2013
The winner of the 2013 competition was Ms Ella Biggs.
Her paper was entitled “Is the ‘Emotional Baggage’ of the Author Restraining the law’s Recognition of Creativity? The Implications of Authorship in Australian Copyright Law” and published in Issue 95 (December 2013) of the Society’s journal Intellectual Property Forum.
2012
The winner of the 2012 competition was Ms Judith Somaratne.
Her paper was entitled “Is there a conflict between the protection of indigenous cultural heritage rights and the existence and/or exercise of intellectual property rights?” and published in Issue 91 (December 2012) of the Society’s journal Intellectual Property Forum.
2011
The winner of the 2011 competition was Ms Nura Taefi.
Her paper was entitled “Beyond Harmonisation – The case for a Trans Tasman Trade Mark Regime” and is published in Issue 86 (September 2011) of the Society’s journal Intellectual Property Forum.
2010
The winner of the 2010 competition was Dr Gareth Dixon.
His paper was entitled “The “ANZAC” Patent – A Bridge too far?” and published in Issue 82 (September 2010) of the Society’s journal Intellectual Property Forum.
2009
The winner of the 2009 competition was Ms Devita Pathi.
Her paper was entitled “The Copyright/Design Overlap – will it ever come into fashion? A discussion of the current trend in the law in Australia and New Zealand” and published in Issue 78 (September 2009) of the Society’s journal Intellectual Property Forum.
2008
The winner of the 2008 competition was Ms Joanne Steer.
Her paper was entitled ‘Counterfeit Goods, Genuine Problem – Secondary liability for trade mark infringement in Australia’ and published in Issue 74 (September 2008) of the Society’s journal Intellectual Property Forum.
2007
The winner of the 2007 competition was Ms Ashleigh Owens.
Her paper was entitled A Rose By Any Other Name:’ Foreign Language Trade Marks in a Multilingual Society and appeared in Issue 71 (December 2007) of the Society’s journal Intellectual Property Forum.
2006
The winner of the 2006 competition was Ms Jani McCutcheon.
Her paper was entitled “Copyright protection for fictional literary characters”.
2005
The winner of the 2005 competition was Mr Craig Smith.
His paper was entitled “Trade Mark Protection for Product Shape – Where does the public interest lie?”
2004
The winners of the 2004 competition were Ms Eliza Saunders and Ms Jasmina Mutabžija.
Their paper was entitled “Patentability, Ordre Public & Morality: the Case of Inventions involving human embryonic stem cells”
2003
The winner of the 2003 competition was Ms Isabella Alexander.
Her paper was entitled “Plus Ca Change – Extension of Copyright term in Australia”
2002
The winners of the 2002 competition were Dan McLennan and Mr Geoff Adam.
Their paper was entitled “Intellectual Property Licensing and Part IV of the Trade Practices Act”
2001
The winner of the 2001 competition was Louise Kellie.
Her paper was entitled “What is in a Name? that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet … or would it?”
2000
The winner of the 2000 competition was Louise Longdin.
Her paper was entitled Making the Most of Article 6:Parallel Importing in Australia and New Zealand
1999
The winner of the 1999 competition was Andrea Jane.
1998
The winner of the 1998 competition was Alison Lam.