Robin Gross

Country:	USA
Email:	Robin [at] ImagineLaw.com
LinkedIn:	[imaginelaw Robin Gross]
Twitter:	@robingross

Robin Gross is the Founder and Executive Director of IP Justice, an international civil liberties organization that promotes balanced intellectual property law and defends freedom of expression.

Robin has represented the Non-Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC) on the ICANN GNSO Policy Council since 2005, and she is a member of the Advisory Group to the United Nations Internet Governance Forum (IGF).

She also runs a boutique law firm, Imagine Law, located in San Francisco, which handles entertainment, intellectual property, and cyberspace legal issues involving transactions.

Education

• Santa Clara University School of Law Juris Doctorate, High Technology Law (1995 – 1998)
• Michigan State University BA, Political Philosophy & International Relations (1988 – 1994)

Career History

Robin Gross began her legal career as the first intellectual property (IP) attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) in 1999. She launched EFF's work on intellectual property issues and was the director of its campaign for Audiovisual Free Expression. She defended in court 2600 Magazine, Norwegian Jon Johansen, and others who published DeCSS code, challenging the anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) as unconstitutional. She led the legal team who eventually won in the California Supreme Court, upholding the right of Web publishers to post DeCSS against bogus trade secret claims.

At the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva in 2003, Robin gave a keynote speech at the World Forum on Communications Rights and argued that in an information society, communication rights are human rights.

In 2004, she organized an international campaign of over 50 civil liberties groups to reform the European Union's Directive on the enforcement of intellectual property rights. The CODE Campaign was successful in removing the directive's ban on technical devices that bypass IP holders' restrictions, and got the criminal provisions deleted from the final directive.

Later in 2004 she went to Chile where she advised Latin American policy makers on how to implement the US-Chile Free Trade Agreement's IP chapter as harmlessly as possible and also went to Geneva to attend meetings to reform WIPO. Robin and IP Justice are active at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and participate in meetings related to the "Development Agenda". In July 2005, she organized a campaign of over 138 international public interest NGOs to support the proposal for a "Development Agenda" at WIPO. IP Justice is also active on issues regarding WIPO's proposed Broadcasting (& Webcasting) Treaty.

She has been active against the IP Chapter of the Free Trade Area of the Americas Treaty, and WIPO's proposed Broadcasting Treaty and is also engaged in the ICANN Non-Commercial User's Constituency.

At WSIS in Tunis in 2005, Robin addressed the WSIS plenary and called for reform of over-zealous intellectual property rights laws. She also chaired two panel discussions on the topics of the World Intellectual Property Organization and P2P and Digital Rights.

In 2005, Robin taught international copyright law at Santa Clara University School of Law, where she served on SCU's High Technology Legal Advisory Board from 2004-2006.

Awards and Honors

California’s legal newspaper The Daily Journal selected Robin as one of “California’s Top Ten Most Influential Attorneys in 2001." She has appeared as a guest legal expert on TV and radio news stations including CNN, BBC, NPR, PRI, Tech TV, NHK, DRS, VOA, and CBC. Robin has been quoted in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, USA Today, Business Week, Wired News, Associated Press, Reuters, Financial Times, Billboard, and other media outlets.

In 2004, Managing Intellectual Property Magazine named Robin Gross one of the "Top 100 Most Influential People in Intellectual Property in the World."

Electronic Frontier Foundation

World Intellectual Property Organization

World Summit on the Information Society