Senior Lecturer

Location: Lincoln's Inn Fields
email: j.griffiths@qmul.ac.uk
Phone: +44 (0)20 7882 8121

Jonathan Griffiths specialises in intellectual property law (particularly copyright law) and information law. He teaches intellectual property law, the law of copyright & designs and international and comparative copyright law. He is co-Director of the School of Law’s LLM Programme.

He has published widely on comparative copyright law and on the relationship between intellectual property and human rights. With colleagues at the MPI for Intellectual Property & Competition Law, and other European copyright scholars, he was involved in directing a joint research project that culminated in Declaration on a Balanced Interpretation of the Three-Step Test in Copyright Law. He is currently engaged in a project to draft an International Instrument on Limitations & Exceptions in Copyright Law.

Jonathan Griffiths is a member of the advisory board of the Nottingham Law Journal and is on the editorial board of The Journal of Media Law. He is an international contributing editor of the Media and Arts Law Review.

Recently, he has delivered the following papers:

• ‘Creativity and “the Work”’, HERA Workshop on Authorship Dynamics and the Dynamic Work, University of Cambridge, 15 December 2012
• ‘The Supreme Court and Copyright Law’, delivered at the CCLS Conference on “The UK Supreme Court: an Assessment of the First Three Years”, Supreme Court, London, 12 October 2012
• ‘Constitutionalising or Harmonising? – the Right to Property in European Intellectual Property Law’, delivered at ‘Symposium: the Interface of Public and Private Law Concepts of Property’, King’s College London, June 2012.
• ‘Copyright & Fundamental Rights’, Annual Conference on European Copyright Law’, Academy of European Law, Trier, May 2012
• ‘Flexible Copyright & Fundamental Rights’, ‘Towards Flexible Copyright’, Ministry of Justice of the Netherlands, International Peace Palace, The Hague, February 2012
• ‘An Exception for Data Mining?’, Workshop on ‘Copyright Exceptions in the UK: Time for Reform’, Intellectual Property Research Centre, Brunel University, December 2011
• ‘The Tortuous Path to Reform – Exceptions & Limitations’, Osgoode Hall Law School Conference, “Can Canada Learn Anything from Europe? European Perspectives on Copyright Law in the Information Era’, Ottawa, October 2011

Publications:

A number of Jonathan Griffiths' publications are available on SSRN

• "Dematerialisation, pragmatism and the European copyright revolution", forthcoming Oxford journal of Legal Studies, 2013.
• ‘Pre-empting conflict – a re-examination of the public interest defence in United Kingdom copyright law’  [2014] Legal Studies (to be published, with “earlyview” web publication in 2013)
• ‘Constitutionalising or harmonising – the Court of Justice, the right to property & European copyright law’ [2013] 1 European Law Review (to be published)
• ‘The United Kingdom’s public interest “defence” and European Union copyright law’ in G Westkamp & N Lee (ed), Intellectual Property & Publicity Rights (Edward Elgar, forthcoming)
• ‘Fundamental rights & European IP law – the case of Art 17(2)’ in C Geiger (ed), Constructing European Intellectual Property (Edward Elgar, 2012) (with L McDonagh)
• 'United Kingdom' in R Hilty (ed), The Balance of Copyright (Springer, 2012)
• 'Criminal liability for intellectual property infringement in Europe' the impact of fundamental rights? in C Geiger (ed), Criminal Enforcement of Intellectual Property; a Blessing or a Curse? (Edward Elgar, 2012)
• “Infopaq, BSA and the ‘Europeanisation’ of United Kingdom Copyright Law” [2011] Media & Arts Law Review
• "Rhetoric and the 'Three-Step Test': Copyright Reform in the United Kingdom" [2010] EIPR 309
• “Unsticking the Centre-Piece' the Liberation of European Copyright Law” (2010) 2 Journal of Intellectual Property, Information Technology & e-Commerce Law, 87
• “Copyright's Imperfect Republic and the Artistic Commonwealth”,  in L Bently, J Davis & JC Ginsburg (eds) Copyright & Piracy: an Interdisciplinary Critique (Cambridge University Press, 2010)
• “Copyright and Image Rights” in Carter-Ruck on Libel and Slander (ed A Mullis) (LexisNexis, 2010)
• “The Inconvenience of Freedom of Expression in Trade Mark Law” in H Hansen (ed) Intellectual Property Law & Policy, Vol 11 (Hart Publishing, 2010)
• “Copyright and Image Rights” in Carter-Ruck on Libel and Slander (ed A Mullis) (LexisNexis, 2010)
• The ‘‘Three-Step Test’’ in European Copyright Law: Problems and Solutions [2009] IPQ 428
• ‘Is there a Right to an Immoral Mark?’ in Intellectual Property & Human Rights, ed P Torremans (Kluwer, 2008)
• 'Re-capturing Liberated Information - A Comparative Study of the Relationship between Freedom of Information Legislation and Private Law Restraints on Disclosure' in P Torremans (ed) Intellectual Property & Human Rights (Kluwer,  2008)
• ‘Declaration on a Balanced Interpretation of the 'Three-Step Test In Copyright Law' (with Christophe Geiger and Reto Hilty) (2008) 39 IIC 707

Research interests:

Supervision:

Jonathan Griffiths welcomes proposals for postgraduate supervision in the area of information law, particularly copyright and related rights, freedom of expression and access to information. Currently, he has particular interests in EU and comparative copyright law.

Undergraduate teaching:

• LAW6033 Intellectual Property Law

Postgraduate teaching:

• QLLM040 - Intellectual Property
• QLLM045 - International and Comparative Law of Copyright and Related Rights
• IPLC008 – Designs & Copyright Law