Sophie van Loon: March - May 2006

Sophie van Loon is a PhD student from the Radboud University of Nijmegen in the Netherlands. She did her LL.M at the same university, graduating on the topic of domain names in relation to trademark law. In 2001-2002 she conducted a short-term research project on database law within the Dutch ITeR (‘Information technology and Law’) programme, the results of which were published in the ITeR series. She has been a member of staff of the department of Commercial and Economic Law of the Radboud University since 2002, and regularly teaches copyright law and competition law to students in the masters’ programme.

Since 2003 Sophie has been working on her dissertation, which is concerned with the relationship between intellectual property law and competition law. The main focus of the dissertation is the question under which circumstances a refusal to licence can constitute an abuse of a dominant position. In 2004, Sophie has been awarded the University of Nijmegen ‘Frye’ scholarship, which is meant to enable PhD students to do research abroad. On this scholarship, Sophie has spent some time at the Max Planck Institute for intellectual property law in Munich and is now visiting CIPIL in order to gather more materials for her dissertation as well as to expand her research in the intellectual property field.

Sophie was in Cambridge from 25 March until early May, living at Robinson College.