Interview with Prof. Sean O'Connor

What brings you to Korea? Have you ever been here before?

I've been to Korea a number of times. I'm here for my annual visit; I come to give lectures at different schools. I'll be speaking at Seoul National University tomorrow, both at the medical school and the law school. I'll be talking about music law at the law school and artificial intelligence and life sciences research at the med school. I also have some good friends here. There are also alumni from other schools I've taught at in Korea. It's just a great market because there's so much tech innovation and creativity.  

Can you tell us a bit about your background and how you ended up coming to Mason?

I've been a professor for about twenty years now and had been interacting with the Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property (CPIP) since it was founded in 2012 as an outside fellow for it, and when an opportunity came up to join Mason full time, it was exciting because I had a background with CPIP already. 

You wear several hats at Mason, including scholar and Executive Director. What are your main roles? 

Primarily I'm a tenured professor, which means I do teaching and research. My research is on intellectual property and business law—basically everything around startup companies and how you commercialize technology and artistic creation. I also started the Innovation Law Clinic just this year. That brings in law students who then help startup companies and artists to protect their rights. This program is part of my teaching package. As for running CPIP, we have lots of supporters around the world now. We run programs every month at least and conferences around the world. I am hoping to run some here as well. 

What are the current trends in IP both in the US and globally? What are the leading countries in terms of IP protection?

A big issue around the world is patent eligibility. That is, what things should be eligible for patents? The first question is, are these the sorts of things people should get patents on at all? Second, is this particular invention new enough that it should get that protection? For example, medicines, especially if they come from natural products, should that be patentable or is that something that's common stock of mankind? 

Korea is known for its fast developing technologies, but its IP policies aren’t known to be catching up quickly… What do you think needs to take place?

Actually, I have a very positive view of Korea's IP protection system. I would say the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) is the best in Asia because it's more neutral compared to the Japan Patent Office (JPO) and China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA). It's definitely doing better than CNIPA.