Presentation to DDiMiT and KMDI

On March 10, 2011, I gave a presentation to the new public-private consortium Designing Digital Media for the Internet of Things (DDiMiT) at their round table on the intellectual property of things. DDiMiT is currently led by the Knowledge Media Design Institute (KMDI) and the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto. DDiMiT includes members from four local universities, eight digital media content companies, and the Ontario trade organization Interactive Ontario.

The focus of my talk was on presenting: A non-traditional and open analysis of Intellectual Property law.

I spoke about different ways of conceptualizing intellectual property law, focusing on the expansion of the commons, the new issues raised by 3D printing, and how to deal with demand letters.

From my own preparation for this presentation, I believe that industrial design protection will take on greater importance, especially as 3D printing takes off and makes it's way into our everyday lives.

I also encouraged the audience to become smarter consumers of legal services by providing them with a basic understanding of the business of law. This includes understanding what should be shown in a law firm's bill, e.g. who worked on the matter, time billed, and the work performed; and, that is possible to have a law firm's bill assessed.

Should you have any comments or questions, please feel free to contact me.

Sincerely,

Felix Tang