Ulrika Wennersten

Vice Dean for Education at School of Economics and Management, Lund University and Associate professor in Private Law, LLM, LLD, Faculty of Law, Lund University

Research

I obtained a LLD from the Faculty of Law, Lund University, in May 2014 with the thesis Intellectual Property and Non-Commercial Societal Interest (Immaterialrätt och skydd av samhällsideal). The study was divided into two main parts. The first part dealt with the provision of the Swedish Copyright Act laying down that literary artistic works may not be performed or reproduced publicly after the death of the author in a manner that violates cultural interest. The second part dealt with the provision of trademarks, design and patent law according to which products and their commercial exploitation are exempt from protection to the extent that they are contrary to ordre public/public policy or morality. The common denominator of the provisions studied is that they concern the protection of non-commercial societal interest.

My research interest lies in Intellectual Property, Media Law, Entertainment Law, Fashion Law, Art Law, Market Law, and Human Rights.

My research is focused on both the development of the legal protection of photography and photographs and the new challenges the legal protection faces when it comes to the digitalization of photographs. The research will also cover and problematize the legal protection and use of photographs in new technical phenomena, such as the internet, social media, apps, cloud computing etc. The research will for example cover questions on ownership and use rights of photographic images, plagiarism; manipulation of photographic images; photographic image and text combination; freedom of speech and personal integrity.

Teaching

I have long experience in teaching on different academic levels and with different teaching methods. I am interested in pedagogical development and is a member of the Organizing Committee of The European Intellectual Property Teachers’ Network (EIPTN) which bring together European Intellectual Property Teachers to exchange ideas on best practice and innovation in teaching and learning activities relating to intellectual property.

 At the moment am I teaching the following courses at Lund University:

  • European Trademark, Design and Copyright Law, Master´s programme in Business Law (Faculty of Law), 15 credits. I am one out of two course directors for this course.
  • Conflict and Intellectual Property Infringement (Faculty of Law), 15 credits. I am one out of two course directors for this course.
  • Commercial Law (Faculty of Law), 30 credits
  • Fashion Studies: Fashion and Market 2 (Department of Art and Cultural Science, Faculties of Humanities and Theology), 7,5 credits

I also have been given guest lectures at other Swedish universities as Linné University, Linköping University, and Stockholm University. I have extensive international teaching experience. I have been a short term visting professor at Bocconi university, Milan, Italy, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022. I am also a former visting academic at Bond University, Australia. During fall semester 2016, I taught the course Legal Risk Management and Intellectual Property Law at Copenhagen Business School. I have also been a STINT Fellow (former visiting lecturer) at The Ohio State University, Moritz College of Law, US, fall semester 2017.

I have also written the textbook Grundläggande immaterialrätt in intellectual property law (together with Ulf Maunsbach, Faculty of Law) and the 5th edition is now on the market.

Outreach

I participate and organize various activities that include external actors, both in education and research. I am also involved in several networks and many of them are also open to other than Academic researchers. I have a broad Nordic network connection in intellectual property law. I am a member of the Nordic Research Network for Intellectual Property Researchers and attends every year the annual meetings held by the network. I organized the annual meeting 2018 at Lund University 3-5 May 2018.

I am the Chair of the organization Föreningen Immaterialrättsligt Forum (FIF) which is an association in the south of Sweden for academics and practitioner with an interest in Intellectual Property. The association arranges seminars and lectures about topical intellectual property issues. I am is responsible for the Copyright Group of the Swedish Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property (SFIR). The association arranges seminars and lectures about topical intellectual property issues. 

I am Head of Unit (subject group lead) for Intellectual Property at Lund University Centre for Business Law (ACLU).

I have also been a lecturer in a course that dealt with Business Law in a Swedish Context within the Executive Foundation Lund (EFL) integration projects for newly arrived academics. EFL ran this project together with the School of Economics and Management, Lund University, Sparbanksstiftelsen Finn and the southern Swedish business community.

Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):

  • Quality Education
  • Responsible Consumption and Production
  • Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

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