Jessica Lai

Jessica Lai
Born	1985
Awards	Rutherford Discovery Fellowship
Academic background
Alma mater	Victoria University of Wellington, University of Lucerne, Victoria University of Wellington
Thesis	The Use of Nanostructured Calcium Silicate in Solar Cells (2009)
Academic advisors	Thomas Borrmann, Michael J Richardson
Academic work
Institutions	Victoria University of Wellington, Victoria University of Wellington Victoria Business School

Jessica Christine Lai is a New Zealand academic, and is a full professor at Victoria University of Wellington, specialising in the interaction of intellectual property rights and indigenous knowledge.

Academic career

Lai is trained as a chemist, having completed a Master of Science in 2009 in chemistry with a thesis titled The Use of Nanostructured Calcium Silicate in Solar Cells at the Victoria University of Wellington. Lai completed her Doctor of Law in 2013 at the University of Lucerne, where she also conducted postdoctoral research. Lai was awarded a Swiss National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship to work at the Max-Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition in Munich. Lai then returned to New Zealand to join the faculty of the School of Accounting and Commercial Law at Victoria University of Wellington, rising to full professor.

Lai's research focuses on the interaction between Western intellectual property systems and indigenous knowledge, specifically Mātauranga Māori. She has investigated how the patenting system addresses problematic technologies such as a gene-related technology, and also examines law and feminism, knowledge theorisation and legal sociology. Lai has written publicly about issues such as country of origin labelling, the difference between a trade mark and a certification mark in regards to the 'Rainbow tick', and differences between men and women in STEM.

In 2018 Lai and colleague Susie Frankel were awarded a Marsden grant on "Mission Creep” in the Pharmaceutical Industry and its Impact on Innovation and Health. In 2021, Lai was awarded a Rutherford Discovery Fellowship for a project titled Patents and power: a critical analysis of knowledge governance.

Selected works

Authored and edited books

• Lai, Jessica C. (2022). Indigenous Cultural Heritage and Intellectual Property Rights: Learning from the New Zealand Experience?. Springer Cham (published 8 January 2014). p. 331. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-02955-9. ISBN 978-3-319-02955-9.
• Graber, Christoph Beat; Kuprecht, Karolina; Lai, Jessica Christine, eds. (30 November 2012). International Trade in Indigenous Cultural Heritage: Legal and Policy Issues. ElgarOnline. ISBN 9780857938305.
• Lai, Jessica C. (2022). Patent Law and Women Tackling Gender Bias in Knowledge Governance. Routledge. ISBN 9781032079578.
• Frankel, Susie; Lai, Jessica C. (1 October 2016). Patent Law and Policy. LexisNexis. ISBN 9781927183830.

Journal articles

• Jessica C. Lai (2015). "Myriad Genetics and the BRCA Patents in Europe: The Implications of the U.S. Supreme Court Decision". UC Irvine Law Review. 5: 1041. Wikidata Q125876491.
• Jessica C Lai (12 April 2020). "The Role of Patents as a Gendered Chameleon". Social & Legal Studies. 30 (2): 203–229. doi:10.1177/0964663920916237. ISSN 0964-6639. Wikidata Q125875560.
• Jessica Christine Lai (2010). "Māori Culture in the Modern World: Its Creation, Appropriation and Trade". SSRN Electronic Journal. doi:10.2139/SSRN.1961482. ISSN 1556-5068. Wikidata Q125876540.
• Vikas Kathuria; Jessica C. Lai (December 2018). "User review portability: Why and how?". Computer Law & Security Review. 34 (6): 1291–1299. doi:10.1016/J.CLSR.2018.05.018. ISSN 0267-3649. Wikidata Q115087703.

External links

• Closing the Gap: Obstacles Faced by Women in IP, webinar featuring Jessica Lai, Maryam Khajeh Tabari, and Patricia Martone, 22 Nov 2023, via YouTube