Dr Matthew Rimmer is a senior lecturer at the ANU College of Law, and an associate director of the Australian Centre
for Intellectual Property in Agriculture (ACIPA). He holds a BA (Hons) and a University Medal in literature, and a LLB
(Hons) from the Australian National University. Rimmer received a PhD in law from the University of New South Wales
for his dissertation on The Pirate Bazaar: The Social Life of Copyright Law. He is a member of the ANU Climate Change Institute,
and a director of the Australian Digital Alliance. Rimmer has published widely on copyright law and information technology, patent law and biotechnology,
access to medicines, clean technologies, and traditional knowledge. His work is archived at SSRN Abstracts and
Bepress Selected Works.
Rimmer is the author of Digital Copyright and the Consumer Revolution: Hands off my iPod (Edward Elgar, 2007).
With a focus on recent US copyright law, the book charts the consumer rebellion against the Sonny Bono Copyright
Term Extension Act 1998 (US) and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act 1998 (US). Rimmer explores the significance
of key judicial rulings and considers legal controversies over new technologies, such as the iPod, TiVo, Sony Playstation II,
Google Book Search, and peer-to-peer networks. The book also highlights cultural developments, such as the emergence
of digital sampling and mash-ups, the construction of the BBC Creative Archive, and the evolution of the Creative Commons.
Rimmer has also participated in a number of policy debates over Film Directors' copyright, the Australia-United States
Free Trade Agreement 2004, and the Copyright Amendment Act 2006 (Cth).
Rimmer is the author of Intellectual Property and Biotechnology: Biological Inventions (Edward Elgar, 2008). This book
documents and evaluates the dramatic expansion of intellectual property law to accommodate various forms of biotechnology
from micro-organisms, plants, and animals to human genes and stem cells. It makes a unique theoretical contribution to
the controversial public debate over the commercialisation of biological inventions. Rimmer also edited the thematic issue
of Law in Context, entitled Patent Law and Biological Inventions (Federation Press, 2006). Rimmer was also a chief
investigator in an Australian Research Council Discovery Project, "Gene Patents In Australia: Options For Reform" (2003-2005),
and an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant, "The Protection of Botanical Inventions (2003). He is currently a
chief investigator in an Australian Research Council Discovery Project, “Promoting Plant Innovation in Australia” (2009-2011).
Rimmer has participated in inquiries into plant breeders' rights, gene patents, and access to genetic resources.
Rimmer is a co-editor of a collection on access to medicines entitled Incentives for Global Public Health: Patent Law and
Access to Essential Medicines, with Professor Kim Rubenstein and Professor Thomas Pogge. The work considers the
intersection between international law, public law, and intellectual property law, and highlights a number of new policy
alternatives – such as medical innovation prizes, the Health Impact Fund, patent pools, open source drug discovery,
and the philanthropic work of the (Red) Campaign, the Gates Foundation, and the Clinton Foundation. The collection
is due to be published by Cambridge University Press in 2009.
Rimmer is currently working on a monograph on intellectual property and clean technologies due to be published by
Edward Elgar in 2010.
Rimmer has also a research interest in intellectual property and traditional knowledge. He has written about the
misappropriation of Indigenous art, the right of resale, Indigenous performers’ rights, authenticity marks, biopiracy,
and population genetics. He supervised Judith Bannister's PhD dissertation, "Secret Business and Business
Secrets:The Hindmarsh Island Affair, Information Law, and the Public Sphere”, which passed examination in 2007.
Rimmer has taught in "Principles of Intellectual Property", "Copyright Law and Related Rights", "Patent Law
and Related Rights", "Intellectual Property and Biotechnology", and "Media and Communications Law". He has
supervised forty Honours students, two Summer Research Scholars, two graduate research unit Masters
students, and three PhD candidates at the Australian National University. He is available for supervision of both
undergraduate and postgraduate research students.
