Region: North America
Country: USA
Email: Robin [at] ImagineLaw.com
LinkedIn:    Robin Gross
Twitter:    @robingross
Featured in the ICANN 47 - Durban playing card deck

Robin Gross is the Founder and Executive Director of IP Justice an international civil liberties organization based in San Francisco dedicated to promoting balanced intellectual property laws and fair Internet governance policies. [1]

She has served as the Chair of ICANN's Non-Commercial Stakeholders Group (NCSG) since December 2011 to represent non-commercial policy interests within the GNSO policy development process and ICANN community. Previously Ms. Gross Chaired ICANN's Non-Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC) from 2008-2010.

She served as a member of the inaugural Multi-stakeholder Advisory Group to the United Nations Internet Governance Forum (IGF) from 2006-2008 as a representative of civil society. She also served as the representative of NCUC on ICANN GNSO Policy Council from 2004-2008.[2]

She also runs Imagine Law, a boutique law firm with experience on intellectual property rights, Internet, and entertainment law issues.[3]

In a letter dated December 8th, 2011, Robin Gross, along with twenty-seven other domain name industry representatives, wrote to Sen. Jay Rockefeller and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison to support ICANN's new gTLD program, in response to the Senate Hearings taking place on the same day. They supported ICANN's argument that the program would be innovative and economically beneficial and noted that the program took a diverse group of international stakeholders years to develop.[4] The letter can be found here.

Career History edit

Robin Gross began her legal career as the first intellectual property (IP) attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) in 1999.[5]

In 2003, she gave a keynote speech at the WSIS in Geneva, arguing that in an information society, communication rights are human rights.

She organized a campaign named CODE, which was successful in reforming the European Union's Directive on the enforcement of intellectual property rights in 2004. She advised the Latin American Policymaker on how to implement the US-Chile Free Trade Agreement's IP.

Gross participate in WIPO meetings to the "Development Agenda." She organized an international campaign to support the proposal for a "Development Agenda" at WIPO in 2005.

In 2005 at WSIS in Tunis, Gross addressed the WSIS plenary. She also chaired two panel discussions on the topics of the World Intellectual Property Organization and P2P and Digital Rights.

She taught a course regarding international copyright law at Santa Clara University School of Law in 2005. She also served on the High Technology Legal Advisory Board from 2004-2006.[6]

Awards and Honors edit

The Daily Journal chose Gross as one of “California’s Top Ten Most Influential Attorneys in 2001."

On several TV and radio shows she has appeared as a Legal Expert. She 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.[7]

In 2004, Managing Intellectual Property Magazine named Robin Gross one of the "Top 100 Most Influential People in Intellectual Property in the World."[8]

Education edit

  • Santa Clara University School of Law Juris Doctorate, High Technology Law (1995 – 1998)
  • Michigan State University BA, Political Philosophy & International Relations (1988 – 1994)[9]

References edit