Selected Works of Matthew Rimmer

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Matthew Rimmer

The Australian National University

• Senior Lecturer
• ANU College of Law

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Dr Matthew Rimmer is a senior lecturer and the associate director of Research at the
ANU College of Law, and an associate director of the Australian Centre for Intellectual
Property in Agriculture (ACIPA). He holds a BA (Hons) and a University Medal in
literature, and a LLB (Hons) from the Australian National University. Rimmer received a
PhD in law from the University of New South Wales for his dissertation on The Pirate
Bazaar: The Social Life of Copyright Law. He is a member of the ANU Climate Change
Institute, and a director of the Australian Digital Alliance. Rimmer has published widely
on copyright law and information technology, patent law and biotechnology, access to
medicines, clean technologies, and traditional knowledge. His work is archived at SSRN
Abstracts and Bepress Selected Works. 

Rimmer is the author of Digital Copyright and the Consumer Revolution: Hands off my iPod
(Edward Elgar, 2007). With a focus on recent US copyright law, the book charts the
consumer rebellion against the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act 1998 (US) and the
Digital Millennium Copyright Act 1998 (US). Rimmer explores the significance of key
judicial rulings and considers legal controversies over new technologies, such as the
iPod, TiVo, Sony Playstation II, Google Book Search, and peer-to-peer networks. The book
also highlights cultural developments, such as the emergence of digital sampling and
mash-ups, the construction of the BBC Creative Archive, and the evolution of the Creative
Commons. Rimmer has also participated in a number of policy debates over Film
Directors' copyright, the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement 2004, and the
Copyright Amendment Act 2006 (Cth). 

Rimmer is the author of Intellectual Property and Biotechnology: Biological Inventions
(Edward Elgar, 2008). This book documents and evaluates the dramatic expansion of
intellectual property law to accommodate various forms of biotechnology from
micro-organisms, plants, and animals to human genes and stem cells. It makes a unique
theoretical contribution to the controversial public debate over the commercialisation of
biological inventions. Rimmer also edited the thematic issue of Law in Context, entitled
Patent Law and Biological Inventions (Federation Press, 2006). Rimmer was also a chief
investigator in an Australian Research Council Discovery Project, "Gene Patents In
Australia: Options For Reform" (2003-2005), and an Australian Research Council
Linkage Grant, "The Protection of Botanical Inventions (2003). He is currently a
chief investigator in an Australian Research Council Discovery Project, “Promoting Plant
Innovation in Australia” (2009-2011). Rimmer has participated in inquiries into plant
breeders' rights, gene patents, and access to genetic resources. 

Rimmer is a co-editor of a collection on access to medicines entitled Incentives for
Global Public Health: Patent Law and Access to Essential Medicines, with Professor Kim
Rubenstein and Professor Thomas Pogge. The work considers the intersection between
international law, public law, and intellectual property law, and highlights a number of
new policy alternatives – such as medical innovation prizes, the Health Impact Fund,
patent pools, open source drug discovery, and the philanthropic work of the (Red)
Campaign, the Gates Foundation, and the Clinton Foundation. The collection is due to be
published by Cambridge University Press in 2009. 

Rimmer is currently working on a monograph on intellectual property and clean
technologies due to be published by Edward Elgar in 2010. 

Rimmer has also a research interest in intellectual property and traditional knowledge.
He has written about the misappropriation of Indigenous art, the right of resale,
Indigenous performers’ rights, authenticity marks, biopiracy, and population genetics. He
supervised Judith Bannister's PhD dissertation, "Secret Business and Business
Secrets: The Hindmarsh Island Affair, Information Law, and the Public Sphere”, which
passed examination in 2007. 

Rimmer has taught in "Principles of Intellectual Property", "Copyright Law
and Related Rights", "Patent Law and Related Rights", "Intellectual
Property and Biotechnology", and "Media and Communications Law". He has
supervised thirty-two Honours students, two Summer Research Scholars, two graduate
research unit Masters students, and two PhD candidates at the Australian National
University. He is available for supervision of both undergraduate and postgraduate
research students. 

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