In this very special episode of IP Provocations, Rebecca and Kim talk to Larissa Behrendt about First Nations innovation - and what we can learn from the people who lived sustainably in the land now known as Australia for over 65,000 years. 

Drawing upon the themes of Behrendt’s new documentary series The First Inventors, Behrendt speaks about how First Nations’ technologies can tackle climate change, and how Indigenous storytelling, governance and kinship systems are integral to First Nations innovation. She talks about First Nations invention as an entire system of cultural knowledges and understandings sitting outside the Western IP system, and how The First Inventors highlights best practice, Indigenous-led research collaboration.

We also raise the story of David Unaipon’s extraordinary inventiveness. A Ngarrindjeri man of the Coorong region, Unaipon invented a dazzling array of technologies in the early 20th century. He came up with the idea for a vertical flying machine based on boomerang aerodynamics over a decade before helicopters were invented, and his revolutionary approach to sheep shearing technology generated a huge amount of wealth for white Australians, transforming the economy at the time. You can see the patent for his sheers in the openings to all our video episodes! Read more about Unaipon in this piece written in Pursuit. 

IP Provocations is hosted by the Melbourne Law School’s Professor Rebecca Giblin, and the University of Sydney’s Professor Kimberlee Weatherall. You can read more about Giblin’s work here, and Weatherall’s work here. This episode’s guests are:

Larissa Behrendt is a Eualeyai/Kamillaroi woman. She is an award-winning author and filmmaker, a lawyer and the Professor of Law and Director of Research at the Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research at the University of Technology, Sydney. She is the host of ABC Radio National show Speaking Out. She is the director of The First Inventors, a four-part series that tells the story of First Nations innovation. You can read more about all of Behrendt’s work at her website. 

If you’re in Australia, you can watch The First Inventors on SBS On Demand or Ten Play. 

IP Provocations is made with the support of IP Australia - we’re grateful to have had the opportunity to ask such broad ranging questions about the patent system to such interesting people, and get so many surprising answers. The IP Provocations team had full academic freedom in designing these conversations, and the views expressed are those of the individual speakers. 

This podcast was a project of IPRIA, the Intellectual Property Research Institute of Australia, and had additional support from Melbourne Law School and Sydney Law School. The music was composed and recorded by Nina Buchanan. The hosts are Professors Rebecca Giblin and Kimberlee Weatherall, and research support was provided by barrister Amy Surkis. The producer is Greta Robenstone. Anders Furze filled in all the remaining gaps.  
IP Provocations acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the lands on which this podcast was produced, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung People of the Kulin Nation, and the Gadigal people of the Eora nation. We pay our respects to their Elders, past and present. This podcast was produced on stolen land - sovereignty was never ceded. Always was, always will be, Aboriginal land.