Senior Scholar

Email: lmtima@iipsj.org

Lateef Mtima is a Senior Scholar at C-IP² and a Professor of Law at the Howard University School of Law. After graduating with honors from Amherst College, Professor Mtima received his J.D. degree from Harvard Law School, where he was the co-founder and later editor-in-chief of the Harvard BlackLetter Journal (today the Harvard Journal on Racial and Ethnic Justice). He is admitted to the New York and Pennsylvania bars and has practiced intellectual property, bankruptcy, and commercial law, including a decade in private practice with the former international law firm of Coudert Brothers. Professor Mtima has served as a member of the Advisory Council for the United States Court of Federal Claims, President of the Giles S. Rich Inn of Court for the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, a member of the founding Editorial Board for the American Bar Association intellectual property periodical Landslide, a member of the BNA Patent, Trademark & Copyright Journal Advisory Board and the ALI Practical Lawyer Editorial Board, and a  Distinguished Libra Visiting Scholar in Residence at the University of Maine School of Law. Professor Mtima is the Founder and Director of the Institute for Intellectual Property and Social Justice (IIPSJ), an accredited NGO member of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), and which advocates for core principles of socially equitable access, inclusion, and empowerment in the development and implementation of the IP ecosystem.

Professor Mtima is the editor/contributing author of Intellectual Property, Social Justice, and Entrepreneurship: From Swords to Ploughshares (Edward Elgar 2015) and a co-author of Transnational Intellectual Property Law (West Academic 2016). Some of his other publications include The Idea Exclusions in Intellectual Property Law, 28 Texas Intell. Prop. L. J. 343 (2020); IP Social Justice Theory: Access, Inclusion, and Empowerment, 55 Gonzaga L. Rev. 401 (2019/20); Digital Tools and Copyright Clay: Restoring the Artist/Audience Symbiosis, 38 Whittier Law L. Rev. 104 (2018); Copyright and Social Justice in the Digital Information Society: “Three Steps” Toward Intellectual Property Social Justice, 53 Hous. L. Rev. 459 (2015); A Social Justice Perspective on IP, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, in Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Evolving Economies: The Role of Law (Edward Elgar 2012); What’s Mine is Mine but What’s Yours is Ours: IP Imperialism, the Right of Publicity, and Intellectual Property Social Justice in the Digital Information Age, 15 S.M.U. Sci. &Tech. L. Rev. 323 (2012); Fulfilling the Copyright Social Justice Promise: Digitizing Textual Information, 55 N.Y.L. Sch. L. Rev. 77 (2010) (quoted in The Authors Guild v. Google Inc., 770 F. Supp. 2d 666, 679, n. 15, (S.D.N.Y. 2011); Copyright Social Utility and Social Justice Interdependence: A Paradigm for Intellectual Property Empowerment and Digital Entrepreneurship, 112 W. Va. L. Rev. 98 (2009); Whom the Gods Would Destroy; Why Congress Prioritized Copyright Protection Over Internet Free Speech and Privacy in Passing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 61 Rutgers L. Rev. 627 (2009); So Dark the CON(TU) of Man: The Quest for a Software Derivative Work Right in Section 117,  70 U. Pitt. L. Rev. 1 (2008); and “Tasini and Its Progeny: The New Exclusive Right or Fair Use on the Electronic Publishing Frontier?” 14 Ford. Intell. Prop., Media & Ent. L. J. 369 (2004) (quoted in Greenberg v. National Geographic Society, 533 F.3d 1244, 1264, 1266 (11^th Cir. 2008) (dissenting opinion)).