Professor Robert Burrell

Overview

Robert is a Professor of Law at the University of Melbourne. Robert also holds the Professorship of Intellectual Property and Information Technology Law at the University of Oxford. Robert’s previous academic positions include posts at the Australian National University and King’s College London. He has been a Herbert Smith Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge, Visiting Professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York and at the National University of Singapore.

Robert teaches and researches across all areas of intellectual property law. He is the author, with Allison Coleman, of Copyright Exceptions: The Digital Impact (Cambridge University Press, 2005) and, with Michael Handler, of Australian Trade Mark Law (LexisNexis, 3^rd ed. 2024). His work includes interdisciplinary research with historians of science and technology (on the role of rewards as an alternative to the patent system during the industrial revolution), psychologists (testing trade mark law’s assumptions about consumers) and economists (a study for the German government looking at patent waivers).

His work has been cited by the High Court of Australia, Federal Court of Australia, state courts in New South Wales and Western Australia, Supreme Court of New Zealand, High Court of Singapore, Court of Appeal of England and Wales, and in an Opinion of an Advocate General to the European Court of Justice.

Outside of academia, Robert has spent many years working as a consultant to boutique Australian firms and, in particular, has substantial experience in litigation before the Australian Trade Marks Office.