Jacques de Werra is professor of contract law and intellectual property law at the Law School of the University of Geneva, Switzerland since 2006. He was vice-rector of the University of Geneva (2015-2019) and has managed the university's digital strategy (www.unige.ch/digital). He authored a doctoral thesis in Swiss and comparative copyright law which he completed as a visiting scholar at the Max-Planck Institute for Intellectual Property, Competition and Tax Law in Munich in 1996. He has practiced law in Switzerland, before obtaining an LL.M. degree from Columbia Law School in New York City in 2001 and being admitted to the New York bar in 2002. He was a Faculty Fellow (2012-2013) and a Faculty Associate at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society (2013-2014) and has held visiting professor positions at Stanford Law School, Nagoya University and City University of Hong Kong.
Jacques de Werra researches, publishes and speaks on intellectual property law, contract law and Internet, IT and technology law. He has developed a particular expertise in IP commercial law including transfer of technology, licensing and franchising, as well as in alternative dispute resolution mechanisms for IP and technology disputes (specifically arbitration). He has widely published in leading law reviews (including the Harvard Journal of Law and Technology and the Columbia VLA Journal of Law and the Arts) and has authored / edited various books of reference including a Research Handbook on Intellectual Property Licensing (Edward Elgar 2013) and (in co-edition with Prof. Irene Calboli) the Law and Practice of Trademark Transactions (Edward Elgar 2016). He is the coordinator for the University of Geneva of the joint WIPO - University of Geneva Summer school on Intellectual Property and of the University of Geneva summer school on Internet law (www.internetlaw-geneva.ch). Jacques de Werra is the scientific editor of an IP books series (www.pi-ip.ch), in which the proceedings of annual intellectual property law conferences held at the University of Geneva are published (www.jdpi.ch).