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Who Owns Your Genes? Is the Patenting of Genetic Discoveries in the Public Interest?

Tue Aug 03 2010

Members are invited to attend Who Owns Your Genes? a lecture by Professor Peter Cashman on the legal, policy and public interest questions arising out of the patenting of human genetic discoveries. The lecture will take place on 10 August 2010 between 6.00pm-7.30pm at Sydney Law School.

To date, a substantial number of genetic 'discoveries' have been the subject of successful patent applications in Australia and in numerous other countries. This has given rise to a number of complex and controversial legal and policy questions. These issues are presently under consideration by a Senate inquiry in Australia and the subject of a test case in the United States brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Public Patent Foundation affiliated with the Benjamin N Cardozo School of Law [Association for Molecular Pathology, et al. v United States Patent and Trademark Office, et al., SDNY].

Dr Peter Cashman is a barrister and Kim Santow Chair in Law and Social Justice at the University of Sydney. He was formerly: Commissioner in charge of the civil justice review with the Victorian Law Reform Commission; Commissioner jointly in charge of the reference on class actions with the Australian Law Reform Commission; founding Director of the Public Interest Advocacy Centre; founder and senior partner of the firm Cashman & Partners which merged with the Melbourne firm Maurice Blackburn & Co to form the national firm Maurice Blackburn Cashman (now Maurice Blackburn Pty Ltd); Governor of the American Trial Lawyers' Association (now the American Association for Justice) and National President of the Australian Plaintiff Lawyers' Association (now the Australian Lawyers Alliance). He holds a degree in law and a diploma in criminology from the University of Melbourne and a Master of Laws degree and a PhD from the University of London. He has practised law in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia.

The lecture is FREE and pre-registration is not required. For more information about this or other lectures in the series, visit the Law School's web site, e-mail the events coordinator or phone (02) 9351 0259.

3 August 2010

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