Peter is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Law at York Law School. University of York. Peter's initial background was in bioscience, having gained a degree in Physiology and a PhD in Pharmacology, and been awarded  a European Commission Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Molecular Biology. Having qualified as a Solicitor of the Supreme Court of England & Wales and gained further post-graduate qualification in intellectual property law, he practised in the field of IP litigation and exploitation for 20 years, becoming global Head of Intellectual Property at an international law firm. On returning to academia, he gained a PhD in Law from his examination of the justifiable scope of indigenous rights in traditional knowledge associated with genetic resources.

 

Peter’s research interests primarily stem from his experience at the interface between scientific innovation and intellectual property protection, with a particular interest in the  intellectual property protection of pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, synthetic biology and the products of generative AI. He has a research focus on the justifiable scope of Indigenous peoples' sui generis rights in traditional therapeutic knowledge and genetic resources to prevent their misappropriation and is the author of The Protection of Traditional Knowledge at the Frontiers of Drug Discovery (Hart, 2024). He also has a particular interest in the question of ownership of the individual voice (particularly in an age of increasing AI-driven voice cloning and synthesis) and the scope of protection afforded by rights in personality.

 

Peter is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a Fellow of the Faculty of the History & Philosophy of Medicine and Pharmacy, Society of Apothecaries of London.