Jacques de Werra
Biographical note
Jacques de Werra is ordinary/full professor of the law of obligations (contract law) and of intellectual property law at the Faculty of Law. He is the Director of the Digital Law Center (). He is a also member of the MIDS Committee ().
Jacques de Werra has taught as visiting professor at various leading universities abroad (Harvard Law School - January/winter term 2022 & January/winter term 2024 as Charles Hieken Visiting Professor in Patent Law for a course on "International Intellectual Property Transactions", Stanford Law School, Paris 2 - Panth茅on Assas, Universit茅 Catholique de Louvain, City AV短视频 of Hong Kong, AV短视频 of Nagoya).
He was Vice-Rector of the AV短视频 (July 2015 - July 2019) where he was in charge of scientific information, technology transfer, relations with international organizations and the of AV短视频-wide project "Digital AV短视频". He piloted the institutional digital strategy, which led to the adoption of the AV短视频's digital strategy and to the implementing action plan (at the end of 2018).
Jacques de Werra obtained a doctorate in law from the AV短视频 of Lausanne in 1997, in the course of which he completed a research stay at the in Munich financed by a scholarship from the Deutsche Vereinigung f眉r gewerblichen Rechtsschutz und Urheberrecht e.V. After being admitted to the Bar of the Canton of Geneva in 1999, he obtained a Master of Laws degree (LL.M.) and did research as a visiting scholar at in New York with the support of a grant from the () and was admitted to the New York Bar (2002).
Prior to joining the Faculty, Jacques de Werra practiced commercial and intellectual property law for several years in a business law firm in Zurich and in Geneva and also had the opportunity to work abroad (Brussels and New York) in law firms specialized in intellectual property law.
Jacques de Werra teaches, publishes and conducts research in contract law. He has launched the website Swiss Contract Law (SCL, ) which presents the latest developments of the case law relating to Swiss commercial contracts. He also participated in the scientific project to funded by the (CO 2020). Every year, he publishes a review of the latest development of Swiss contract law for the law journal . He further contributes to the Faculty's activities in the field of the law of obligations. He is also active in intellectual property law and digital law. He coordinates the Summer School on Intellectual Property Law co-organized with the World Intellectual Property Organization since 2011 and launched a summer school on Internet law in 2014, which now continues as the "Digital Law Summer school" ().
Jacques de Werra is also active in the field of sports law, particularly from a contract law and an intellectual property law perspective. He has written a report for WIPO on . He is member of the board of the International Academy of Sport Science and Technology (Acad茅mie Internationale des Sciences et Techniques du Sport/AISTS, ) which offers one of the world best master degrees in sport management in which Jacques de Werra teaches sports & intellectual property.
Jacques de Werra organizes every year an international conference on intellectual property (Intellectual Property Law Day / journ茅e de droit de la propri茅t茅 intellectuelle, ) and publishes an IP book series (p庐opri茅t茅 intelle漏tuelle - intelle漏tual p庐operty, ). He co-edited the and edited a collective work on licensing contracts in comparative law (Research Handbook on Intellectual Property Licensing) as well as a book (co-edited with Prof. Irene Calboli) on trademark transactions (The Law and Practice of Trademark Transactions).
Jacques de Werra is involved in various research and legal training institutions inside and outside the AV短视频 in the fields of intellectual property law, information and communication technology law and digital law. He is a member of the editorial board of the Swiss journal of intellectual property, information and competition law ), he is a French-speaking editor of the , for Internet law and the law of new technologies, and a member of the (Canada) and of the scientific committee of the French law journal . He was Faculty Fellow and Associate Faculty at the at Harvard AV短视频 (2012-2014).
Jacques de Werra is also active in the field of alternative dispute resolution/arbitration (particularly for technology disputes) and is on the . He is also a member of various professional associations related to his fields of activity, including the Swiss group of the (LES) and the (ALAI), the (ATRIP) and the (ASA).
For the media, see Jacques de Werra's page on this website: