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Shontavia Johnson

Shontavia Johnson joined the Drake University Law School faculty in 2010 and was named the Kern Family Chair in Intellectual Property Law and Director of the Intellectual Property Law Center in 2016. She teaches Introduction to Intellectual Property, Trademark and Unfair Competition Law, Internet Law, Entertainment Law, and Property Law. Named one of the Top 40 Young Lawyers in the US by the American Bar Association, Shontavia was recently placed on the prestigious Fulbright Specialist roster and named a 2016 A. Leon Higginbotham Fellow by the American Arbitration Association.

Shontavia’s research focuses on intellectual property law, entrepreneurship, and innovation, and includes such topics as the protectability and reach of unregistered trademarks used on the Internet, the impact of the America Invents Act on startups and entrepreneurs, the role of the Thirteenth Amendment when permanent tattoos embody commercial trademarks, and viral meme trademarks. Her publications have appeared in the Berkeley Technology Law Review, the Michigan Telecommunications and Technology Law Review, the John Marshall Review of Intellectual Property Law, and the Arkansas Law Review. Shontavia has taught intellectual property law to students in the U.S. and abroad and served as a consultant to both startups and large corporations.

In 2014, Shontavia’s article, Trademark Territoriality in Cyberspace: An Internet Framework for Common Law Trademarks, was awarded the International Trademark Association Ladas Memorial Award, a competition that identifies the best article in the world on a trademark law topic. That same year, her article, Memetic Theory, Trademarks & the Viral Meme Mark, won third place in the competition. Shontavia has received the Iowa Organization of Women Attorneys Gertrude Rush Award, the South Carolina Governor’s School for Science and Mathematics Outstanding Alumnus Award, and the Jackie Robinson Foundation 42 Under 40 Alumni Award. In 2013, Shontavia was also named one of 40 Lawyers Under 40 by the National Bar Association and IMPACT.

Shontavia is also the founder and managing attorney of Jackson Johnson LLC, a boutique law firm serving entrepreneurs and entertainers. She frequently counsels clients in all areas of intellectual property law and consults with clients on entrepreneurial growth and development. She is registered to practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office and a licensed mediator and arbitrator.

Shontavia received a B.S. in Biosystems Engineering from Clemson University, where she was a Palmetto Fellows Scholar, Coca-Cola Clemson Scholar, and a Jackie Robinson Foundation Scholar. She received her J.D. from the University of Arkansas School of Law, where she was associate editor of the Arkansas Law Review and a member of the National Criminal Procedure Moot Court team. While in law school, she was named a Vincent W. Foster Scholar, Jim G. Ferguson Scholar, and Harold Flowers Law Society Scholar, and she also served as a judicial extern to Judge Jimm Larry Hendren of the United States District Court for the Western District of Arkansas. Shontavia also studied international law and comparative constitutional law at the University of the Western Cape in Cape Town, South Africa.

Can the world ever really keep terrorists off the internet?

Jun 09, 2017 18:28 pm UTC| Insights & Views Technology

After Londons most recent terror attacks, British Prime Minister Theresa May called on countries to collaborate on internet regulation to prevent terrorism planning online. May criticized online spaces that allow such...

America's always had black inventors – even when the patent system explicitly excluded them

Feb 15, 2017 06:38 am UTC| Insights & Views Law Politics

America has long been the land of innovation. More than 13,000 years ago, the Clovis people created what many call the first American invention a stone tool used primarily to hunt large game. This spirit of American...

Celebrity voices are powerful, but does the First Amendment let them say anything they want?

Dec 12, 2016 09:57 am UTC| Law

When NFL player Colin Kaepernick refuses to stand for the national anthem, or the cast of the Broadway musical Hamilton confronts the vice president-elect, or the Dixie Chicks speak out against war, talk quickly turns to...

US Election Series

Donald Trump tweeted himself into the White House

Nov 10, 2016 22:14 pm UTC| Insights & Views Politics

Donald Trumps presidential election victory has been described as stunning, shocking and having elicited a primal scream from the media. The president-elect resonated enough with more than 59 million Americans that they...

How the IOC effectively maintains a gag order on nonsponsors of the Olympics

Aug 13, 2016 11:00 am UTC| Insights & Views Law Sports

If youre one of the billions of people around the world following the 2016 Rio Olympic Games in any form, youre probably aware of its most talked-about sports moments. Simone Biles of the United States (with dual Belizean...

Who owns your tattoo? Maybe not you

Aug 08, 2016 05:53 am UTC| Insights & Views Law

More than 20 percent of all Americans have at least one tattoo, and for millennials that number jumps to almost 40 percent. What could be more intimately a part of you than a work of body art permanently inked into your...

Can you sue if someone posts an unflattering photo of you on social media?

Mar 08, 2016 23:46 pm UTC| Law

Open your Twitter or Instagram account and chances are good somewhere in there you may see an unflattering photo of a stranger. Its become increasingly common to share pictures of people we dont know online. And it...

Economy

Beyond the spin, beyond the handouts, here’s how to get a handle on what’s really happening on budget night

Three weeks from now, some of us will be presented with a mountain of budget papers, and just about all of us will get to hear about them on radio, TV or news websites on budget night. The quickest way to find out what...

What if the Reserve Bank itself has been feeding inflation? An economist explains

Heres something for the board of the Reserve Bank of Australia to ponder as it meets next month to set interest rates. It has pushed up rates on 13 occasions since it began its attempt to restrain inflation in May...

China’s new world order: looking for clues from Xi’s recent meetings with foreign leaders

There is broad consensus that Chinese foreign policy has become more assertive and more centralised in the decade since Xi Jinping has ascended to the top of Chinas leadership. This has also meant that Chinese foreign...

How India’s economy has fared under ten years of Narendra Modi

More than 960 million Indians will head to the polls in the worlds biggest election between April 19 and early June. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is seeking a third...

EU enlargement: What does the future hold?

To widen or to deepen. This has been one of the longstanding dilemmas throughout European Union (EU) history, and a perennial sticking point in the unending process of European integration. In its time, the UK...

Politics

Labour can afford to be far more ambitious with its economic policies – voters are on board

To say that the Labour party is flying high in the polls is something of an understatement. But despite its consistent lead against the Tories, the opposition finds itself in a rather odd position: on the cusp of power but...

Joe Biden Proposes Record 44.6% Capital Gains Tax in Latest Budget Plan That May Favor Cryptocurrencies

President Joe Biden has proposed raising the capital gains tax to an unprecedented 44.6% in a bold fiscal move, targeting the wealthiest Americans. This hike is part of his 2025 budget proposal to reduce income...

Georgia is sliding towards autocracy after government moves to force through bill on ‘foreign agents’

Georgias ruling party attempted to pass a controversial bill on foreign agents in March 2023. The law would have required civil society groups and the media to register as being under foreign influence if they receive...

Opening statements are the most important part of a trial – as lawyers in Trump’s hush money case know well

Though Hollywood movies about courtroom dramas often glamorize the closing arguments given by lawyers, in reality the opening statement is likely the most important single event of a trial. Such was the case in the hush...

South Korean President Yoon faces foreign policy challenges after the National Assembly election

South Koreas parliamentary election of April 10, 2024, was widely seen as a referendum on President Yoon Suk Yeols first two years in office. That being the case, the nation collectively expressed its strong...

Science

Peter Higgs was one of the greats of particle physics. He transformed what we know about the building blocks of the universe

Peter Higgs, who gave his name to the subatomic particle known as the Higgs boson, has died aged 94. He was always a modest man, especially when considering that he was one of the greats of particle physics the area of...

Could a telescope ever see the beginning of time? An astronomer explains

The James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST for short, is one of the most advanced telescopes ever built. Planning for JWST began over 25 years ago, and construction efforts spanned over a decade. It was launched into space on...

US media coverage of new science less likely to mention researchers with African and East Asian names

When one Chinese national recently petitioned the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to become a permanent resident, he thought his chances were pretty good. As an accomplished biologist, he figured that news...

If life exists on Jupiter’s moon Europa, scientists might soon be able to detect it

Europa is one of the largest of more than 90 moons in orbit around the planet Jupiter. It is also one of the best places to look for alien life. Often termed an ocean world by scientists, observations to date strongly...

Exploding stars are rare but emit torrents of radiation − if one happened close enough to Earth, it could threaten life on the planet

Stars like the Sun are remarkably constant. They vary in brightness by only 0.1% over years and decades, thanks to the fusion of hydrogen into helium that powers them. This process will keep the Sun shining steadily for...

Technology

Elon Musk vs Australia: global content take-down orders can harm the internet if adopted widely

Do Australian courts have the right to decide what foreign citizens, located overseas, view online on a foreign-owned platform? Anyone inclined to answer yes to this question should perhaps also ask themselves whether...

BlackRock Bitcoin ETF Sees Zero Inflows; SEC Delays Ether ETF Decision

BlackRocks Bitcoin ETF registered zero daily inflows for the first time since its inception. At the same time, the SEC delayed its decision on a major Ether ETF, highlighting uncertainty in the cryptocurrency...

Samourai Wallet Founders Arrested, Crypto Markets Tumble Amid Regulatory Heat

The cryptocurrency market dipped significantly after the U.S. Department of Justice arrested Samourai Wallets CEO and CTO, exacerbating volatility amid geopolitical tensions and the recent Bitcoin halving. Bitcoin and...

Post-Halving Surge: Standard Chartered Predicts Bitcoin to Hit $150K on Reduced Market Leverage

Geoff Kendrick, Standard Chartered Banks analyst and head of digital assets research, believes bitcoin (BTC) would likely trend upward following the halving due to lower leveraged market positions. In an interview with...

Tesla Cybertruck Hits 1,000-Unit Weekly Production Amid Q1 Financial Shortfalls

Tesla announced a milestone in Cybertruck production, achieving 1,000 units per week concurrently with reporting lower-than-expected financial results for Q1 2024. Despite missing revenue and earnings estimates, Teslas...