Dr. Bita Amani is an Associate Professor of Law at Queen’s University and is affiliated faculty with the Cultural Studies Graduate Program. She is Co-Director of Feminist Legal Studies Queen’s. She obtained her Bachelor of Arts from York University (with Distinction) in Sociology, her Bachelor of Laws from Osgoode Hall Law School, and received her Doctor of Juridical Science from the University of Toronto, Faculty of Law, with doctoral fellowships from SSHRC and the Centre for Innovation Law and Policy.

Professor Amani teaches courses in intellectual property, information privacy, and feminist legal studies (workshop). She is currently working on a number of issues related to food law and governance, intellectual property, algorithmic error and privacy law. Dr. Amani has served as consultant to the provincial government on gene patenting as a member of the Subcommittee to the Ontario Advisory Committee on Predictive Genetic Technology (2001). She was editor and annotations editor on the e-Laws project for the Ministry of the Attorney General (Ontario, 2000-2) Office of the Legislative Counsel (OLC). Professor Amani was co-investigator on the policy implications for women and children of expanding recognition of foreign polygamous marriages in Canada, funded by the Status of Women Canada and the Department of Justice (2005). Her research on “Consuming ‘DNA as Chemicals’ and Chemicals as Food: A Fresh Policy Perspective for Women’s Health” was funded by the National Network on Environments and Women’s Health (NNEWH), through the Bureau of Women’s Health and Gender Analysis, Health Canada. She has been a consultant to, and served briefly as a legislative drafter for, the Ministry of the Attorney General (Ontario), Office of the Legislative Counsel (37th Legislative Session, 2001). She occasionally teaches as an Adjunct Professor of Law at Osgoode Hall Law School, in the Part-Time Professional Development Program (LLM) and is called to the Bar of Ontario (2000).

Professor Amani enjoys traveling extensively to deliver lectures, papers, and presentations and has published on a number of topics.

Current Research

Current research is focused on various issues in food law, intellectual property law, policy, and politics (domestic and international), innovation and sustainable development, regulating new technologies (from biotech to AI/robotics), biopiracy and protection of traditional and cultural knowledge, regulatory issues in medical/scientific research and its commercialization, privacy and data protection, regulatory diversity, feminist and critical legal studies.

Visiting Positions

  • Osgoode Hall Law School, Distinguished Visiting Scholar, Institute for Feminist Legal Studies, Canada, 2009-10
  • University of Oxford, Visiting Scholar and Research Fellow, Guest Lecturer, Intellectual Property Research Centre, UK, Spring 2008
  • University of Leeds School of Law, Visiting Scholar and Research Fellow, Guest Lecturer, Centre for International Governance, UK, Spring 2008
  • Brocher Foundation, Visiting Scholar and Research Resident, Geneva Switzerland, Spring/Summer 2008

Select Recognitions

  • Iranian Women’s Organization of Ontario (IWOO) High Achiever Award (2017)
  • Elected to the Board of IT.CAN (2009-11)
  • Professor of the Month, IranianProfessors.com
  • Tribute to Iranian Canadian Academe Award Recipient

Select Publications

Books and Monographs

  • Trade-marks and Unfair Competition: Cases and Commentary on Canadian Law Second Edition (with Carys Craig), (Toronto: Carswell, 2014).
  • Trade-marks and Unfair Competition: Cases and Commentary on Canadian Law First Edition (with Carys Craig), (Toronto: Carswell, 2011).
  • State Agency and the Patenting of Life in International Law: Merchants and Missionaries in a Global Society, (Aldershott: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2009).

Other Recent Scholarship

  • “Of at Least Equal Importance: (Intellectual Property) Rights Mapping with a Moral Compass” (2018) 31.1 Intellectual Property Journal, 105-
  • “The Jus of Use: Trademarks in Transition” (2018) 30 Intellectual Property Journal, 217-270.
  • “Disabused of Copyright’s Use?: Not Quite But You Had Me at Non-use”, (December 2016) 29 Intellectual Property Journal, 141-154 (Book Review).
  • ““Consuming “DNA as Chemicals” and Chemicals as Food” in Dayna Nadine Scott (ed.), Our Chemical Selves: Gender, Toxics, and Environmental Health (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2015) 142-187.
  • “Biopatenting and Industrial Policy Discourse: Decoding the Message of Biomedia on the Limits of Agents and Audiences”, in Courtney Doagoo et al.(eds.) Intellectual Property for the 21st Century: Interdisciplinary Approaches (Toronto: Irwin Law, 2014) 137-161
  • “Copyright and Freedom of Expression: Fair Dealing Between Work and Play” in Rosemary Coombe et. al., (eds.), Dynamic Fair Dealing: Creating Canadian Culture Online (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014) 43-55.
  • “Access Copyright and the Proposed Model Copyright License Agreement: A Shakespearean Tragedy” (2012) 24 Intellectual Property Journal, 221-246.