Professor Robert Burrell is a Professor of Law at the University of Melbourne. He also holds the Professorship of Intellectual Property and Information Technology Law at the University of Oxford. His career history includes previous academic positions at the Australian National University and King’s College London. Burrell has held visiting appointments as Herbert Smith Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge, Visiting Professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York, and Visiting Professor at the National University of Singapore.

Robert Burrell teaches and researches across all areas of intellectual property law. His research interests involve interdisciplinary collaborations, such as with historians of science and technology examining the role of public rewards as an alternative to the patent system during the Industrial Revolution, with psychologists testing trade mark law assumptions about consumer behavior, and with economists including a study for the German government on patent waivers. He teaches Trade Mark Law in the Melbourne JD program and Trade Marks and Unfair Competition in the Melbourne Law Masters program. Key publications include Copyright Exceptions: The Digital Impact (Cambridge University Press, 2005), co-authored with Allison Coleman, and Australian Trade Mark Law (LexisNexis, 3rd edition, 2024), co-authored with Michael Handler. His scholarship has been cited by the High Court of Australia, Federal Court of Australia, courts in New South Wales and Western Australia, Supreme Court of New Zealand, High Court of Singapore, Court of Appeal of England and Wales, and in an Opinion of an Advocate General to the European Court of Justice. In addition, Burrell has worked as a consultant to boutique Australian law firms, with substantial experience in litigation before the Australian Trade Marks Office.

Professional Email: robert.burrell@unimelb.edu.au