The Future of IP: Stimulating Creativity and Inclusivity Liber Amicorum Geertrui Van Overwalle

This celebratory volume honours the remarkable career and intellectual legacy of Professor Dr. Geertrui Van Overwalle, an influential scholar in patent law and plant breeders’ rights. For more than four decades, Van Overwalle has questioned conventions, supported inclusivity, openness, and the public interest. In addition, she has upheld rigorous academic standards and strongly defended academic integrity.

Spanning 25 contributions from leading academics and practitioners across the globe, The Future of IP: Stimulating Creativity and Inclusivity explores how intellectual property (IP) law can respond to today’s pressing challenges, from foundational questions of inclusivity, openness, and access to knowledge to sustainability, biotech innovation, patent law and policy interpretation, and digital transformation.

Structured around six thematic parts and enriched with peculiar inventions drawn from Jacques Carelman’s Catalog of Fantastic Things – each selected and reimagined by the contributors – this Liber Amicorum offers both a scholarly and deeply personal tribute. It invites readers to see IP not as a closed system, but as a framework that can be shaped to promote creativity, openness, inclusivity, equity, and public interest – priorities and values that Van Overwalle has consistently advanced throughout her career.