Tina Piper

Associate Professor
Associate Dean (Academic)

New Chancellor Day Hall
3644 Peel Street
Room 425
Montreal, Quebec
Canada H3A 1W9

514-398-4324 [Office]
tina.piper [at] mcgill.ca (Email)

Tina Piper


Read her Publications on SSRN
McGill Teaching Snapshot: Tina Piper 
Focus online: Two New books by Faculty Members (April 2014)


Biography

Tina Piper teaches and researches in the areas of intellectual property law and legal history. She co-published a book entitled Putting Intellectual Property in its Place: Creative Labour and the Everyday (Oxford University Press) with Laura Murray and Kirsty Robertson. She was an IPLAI Resident Faculty Fellow from 2013 to 2015. She is a member of the Centre for Intellectual Property Policy (CIPP) and was appointed associate dean (academic) in 2022. 

Before joining McGill University, Tina trained as a biomedical-electrical engineer and completed her doctorate of law at the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. Her doctorate studied how and why physicians in early twentieth-century Britain created and enforced a prohibition against patenting medical methods of treatment. This was the basis for her research into communities which apply, ignore and transform intellectual property law in the course of their activities. She has explored a number of communities including independent music labels in Montreal; scientists investigating plant hormones at Canada’s National Research Council; early twentieth century Canadian university research scientists; mid-twentieth century Canadian military officers; and Canadian lawyers’ contemporary copyright practices.

Tina has been extensively involved in teaching and curriculum development. She has taught the Treble Cliff, an inter-disciplinary course with Music, Law and Management on new models for music creation and distribution. She also chaired Curriculum Committee (2009-2011), the Working Group on Teaching and Learning Reform (2011-2012) and helped create the faculty’s Law Teaching Network (2010-present).

Tina works with a number of community groups and has sat on the boards of POPMontreal, CKUT and Creative Commons Canada. She was an Action Canada Fellow (2005-2006). She has been a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada since 2004.

Education

  • DPhil (Law), University of Oxford, UK, 2008
  • MPhil (Law), University of Oxford, UK, 2005
  • BCL (European and Comparative Law), University of Oxford, UK, 2002
  • LLB Dalhousie University Law School, 2001
  • BASc (Engineering), University of Toronto, 1998

Employment

  • IPLAI Resident Faculty Fellow, 2013-2015.
  • Research Director, Centre for Intellectual Property Policy, Faculty of Law, McGill University 2010-2012
  • Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, McGill University 2005-
  • Clerk to the Chief Justice, Supreme Court of Canada 2004-2005

Areas of Interest

Patent and copyright law, legal history, history of medicine, science and technology studies.

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