Rafael Sanchez Aristi

Prof. Dr Rafael Sánchez Aristi (14 May 1969) is Professor in Civil Law at the Faculty of Social and Juridical Sciences of the Rey Juan Carlos University in Madrid (Spain). He received his doctorate [PhD] in Law, with honours, by the Autónom University in Madrid, with a thesis on copyright in musical works (1998), made under the direction of Prof. Dr Rodrigo Bercovitz Rodríguez-Cano. He was granted the First 'Sancho Rebullida' Award by the Law School of the Navarre University in Pamplona for the best thesis on Civil Law defended in Spain during the academic year 1997-1998. He has written a book, corresponding to his thesis, titled La propiedad intelectual sobre las obras musicales (Granada, Comares, two editions: 1999 and 2005), a second one on successory agreements (Granada, Comares, 2003), and another one on the issue of peer-to-peer file-sharing (Madrid, Instituto de Derecho de Autor, 2007). He has enjoyed a research scholarship within a Research Personnel Training Programme implemented by the Autonomous Community of Madrid (1993-1997), and he has been a member of several research projects on various subjects concerning intellectual property financed by the Ministry of Education. He has been a visiting researcher at the Max-Planck-Institut for Patent, Copyright, and Competition Law in Munich (Germany) and at King's College in London (United Kingdom).

For fourteen years, he has been first coordinator and later vice director, as well as regular contributor of the review pe. i. revista de propiedad intelectual, the sole four-monthly publication in Spanish devoted monographically to the study of intellectual property. He has participated in several collective works, such as a Comment on the Law on standard-form contracts (Pamplona, Aranzadi, 1999), a Comment on the Civil Code (Pamplona, Aranzadi, three editions: 2001, 2006, 2009), a Comment on the Bankruptcy Law (Tecnos, Madrid, 2004), a Comment on the Intellectual Property Law (Tecnos, Madrid, 2007), a Treatise on Contracts Law (Tirant lo Blanch, Valencia, 2009), and a Handbook on Intellectual Property (Valencia, Tirant lo Blanch, five editions: 2001, 2003, 2006, 2009 and 2012), all of them edited by Prof. Dr R. Bercovitz. Among other studies, his article on purchase by law of property and other real rights in goods [Aranzadi Civil, No. 19 (February 2001), 13] is particularly noteworthy.

He has taken part as rapporteur in many courses and seminars, lecturing about several matters, mainly related to intellectual property rights, under invitation of entities and organizations such as the World Intellectual Property Organization, the 3 European Institute for Public Administration, the Spanish Group of theAssociation Littéraire et Artistique Internationale (ALAI), the International University 'Menéndez Pelayo', the Cervantes Institute, the Sociedad General de Autores y Editores, the Autónoma University of Madrid, the University of Alicante, the University of Castilla-La Mancha and the Spanish Association of Writers, among others.

As a teacher, he has taught throughout a period of fourteen years all the subjects into which the Civil Law is traditionally divided (General Part, Persons, Obligations and Contracts, Property and Trust Law, Family and Successory Law). For several years he has been in charge of teaching the special subjects on intellectual property at the Faculty of Social and Juridical Sciences of the Rey Juan Carlos University in Madrid. Since 2007, he has been the Secretary of the Spanish Group of the Association Littéraire et Artistique Internationale.

From 2006 to 2009, he has served as a substitute magistrate in the Provincial Court of Guadalajara. Since September 2009, he serves as a legal adviser in the General Council for the Judiciary.