04-15

Towards a Theory of Infrastructure Commons

We live in an increasingly complex world with overlapping, interdependent resource systems that constitute our environment and affect our lives in significant, although sometimes subtle and complex, ways. Too often, we take for granted the fundamental infrastructure resources upon which these systems depend. Professor Frischmann will present draft chapters from his forthcoming book, Infrastructure: The Social Value of Shared Resources. This book examines the functional relationships between infrastructure and various infrastructure-dependent systems, and devotes much needed attention to understanding two related issues: how society benefits from infrastructure resources and how decisions about how to manage or govern infrastructure resources affect a wide variety of public and private interests. In particular, Frischmann develops an economic theory focused on the social demand for open infrastructure. The theory is relevant to-and being raised in-a wide range of ongoing debates at the heart of innovation law and policy, ranging from antitrust to intellectual property to network neutrality, among others.

Professor Frischmann is an associate professor at Loyola University Chicago. He teaches in the areas of intellectual property and Internet law. Prior to academia, Professor Frischmann clerked for the Honorable Fred I. Parker of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and practiced law at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering in Washington, DC.

Reception immediately following 3rd floor atrium