Luminita Olteanu

Assistant Professor

Intellectual Property

School of Law
S2.06, Social Sciences Building
University of Warwick
Coventry CV4 7AL
United Kingdom

024 765 74553

Scholarship

My research interests lie at the intersection of law and society, particularly focusing on the intricate connections between legal norms, technology, consumer behaviour, and brand dynamics. My doctoral work delved into the impact of new technologies and consumer practices on trademark law, highlighting discrepancies between legal presumptions and real-world market dynamics. My ongoing research projects examine the initiatives behind trademark dilution litigation, the influence of commercial messages on body image dissatisfaction, and explore moral justifications for judicial decisions in cases involving junior brands emulating established ones

Bio

Luminita joined Warwick Law School as Assistant Professor in 2023. Previously, she was a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow (2022-2023) at LSE Law School. She obtained her PhD from UCL Laws for the thesis "Rethinking Trade Mark Reputation and Its Susceptibility to Dilutive Harms" for which she was awarded the prestigious PhD Scholarship from the Institute of Brand and Innovation Law. Prior to joining academia, she practiced law at various international law firms, specializing in intellectual property law disputes, date privacy matters and commercial law. In 2021, Luminita was awarded Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy.

Education

Research Fellow, LSE Law School

PhD, Law, UCL Laws, London, UK

LLM, University of Kent Law School

LLB, University of Bucharest Law School

Teaching

Luminita is the module convenor for LA366:Global Intellectual Property Law & Policy and teaches LA248:Property Law seminars. Prior to joining Warwick Law School, Luminita has taught intellectual property law at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels at LSE Law School, UCL Laws and Kent Law School. As evidence of her teaching excellence, Luminita was included on the UCL Student Choice Awards 2022 Roll of Honour for Exceptional Feedback.

Languages

English, Romanian (main languages); Spanish (intermediate), French (intermediate).

Publications

Olteanu, Luminita, 2023. Bad faith : investigating overbroad trade mark registrations. Intellectual Property Quarterly, 2, pp. 274-295
Olteanu, Luminta, 2022. The ?trade-mark-law-and-innovation? trap : why it would be wise to conceptualize innovation outside the realms of dilution protection. Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice, 17 (8), pp. 659-673
Olteanu, Luminita, 2022. European dilution : mapping the origin and roles of the reputation requirement. Journal of Law and Jurisprudence, 11 (1), pp. 32-63
Olteanu, Luminita, 2021. Riding on the coat-tails of traditional cultural expressions. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law, 34, pp. 861-891
Olteanu, Luminita, 2020. Rebranding strategies and their boomerang effect?the curious case of Burberry. The Journal of World Intellectual Property, 23 (5-6), pp. 777-797

Deaconescu, L. T., Olteanu, Luminita, Popescu, L. C., Zvâc, A., 2020. Romania. Liebscher, Christoph; Fremuth-Wolf, Alice (eds.), Arbitration Law and Practice in Central and Eastern Europe, Huntington, NY, Juris

Teaching Projects

Highlighted

Research Project: "Cross-Cultural Copyright: A Comparative Study of Subject Matter Eligibility and Originality in UK and Japanese Law"

Luminita has been awarded a small grant from the Daiwa Foundation to support her research project, titled "Comparative Analysis of Copyright Requirements Under UK-Japan Law." This project focuses on examining the concepts of subject matter eligibility and originality within copyright law, drawing comparisons between the legal frameworks of the United Kingdom and Japan. Part of her research will be completed at the Hokkaido University Graduate School of Law in April 2024. This collaboration promises to provide valuable insights into the intersection of copyright law in these two jurisdictions.

Impact

Professional Practice

In February 2023 Luminita has been asked to act as the UK National Reporter for the Intellectual Property Law Question at this year’s Ligue Internationale du Droit de la Concurrence Congress (LIDC). In her role as national reporter, she prepared an analysis on the UK trade mark law mechanisms aimed at curtailing over-broad trade mark rights and attend the Congress session where the conclusions of my report will be discussed.

She will discuss her findings at the 2023 LIDC Congress taking place in Gothenburg, Sweden, 21-24 September.

Research Supervision

I welcome enquiries from prospective PhD supervisees. However, please ensure that you have a research proposal which corresponds with the University of Warwick School of Law requirements.

I particularly welcome expressions of interest from prospective PhD candidates in the field of trade marks and brands. Specifically, I am eager to supervise topics with an empirical or interdisciplinary focus, including how technology influences the evolving dynamics of consumption and meaning production, as well as the social implications, specifically exclusions associated with branding.

In addition to trade marks and brands, I also encourage applications of interest from prospective PhD candidates in the following areas:

Copyright and its normative underpinnings
Patents and the role of inventorship in an AI world and the relationship between the incentive-to-invent foundation of patent law and real-life needs to invent.