Marcelo Thompson Mello Guimaraes

Marcelo Thompson Mello Guimaraes (born 1978) studied Law at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro, and took his Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) in 2000, with a postgraduate diploma from 2002-2003 in the legal area of intellectual property. Concurrently he had a teaching post for IT law at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica. From 2002-2003 he also worked as a lawyer in the department of Venture Capital of the Brazilian Innovation Agency FINEP of the Brazilian Ministry for Science and Technology and was head of the department for conduct of law cases from 2002-2003. From 2004-2005 he was the head of the legal department of the Brazilian Information Technology Institute (ITI), reporting to the presidential office, and participated in programmes for introducing an infrastructure for electronic signatures and free software. Subsequently, he did an LL.M in Law and Technology in the context of the Law & Technology-Programme of the University of Ottawa (2005-2006). He has been a doctoral candidate in the area of Information, Communication and the Social Sciences at KelloggCollege and at the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford and a scholarship of the CAPES Foundation of the Brazilian Ministry of Education. His dissertation has the working title: “Evaluating Neutrality in the Information Age: on the Value of Persons and Access” and concerns itself from the viewpoint of law and political studies with the application of the principle of neutrality in internet law and politics. His particular interests concern the legal, political and philosophical aspects of electronic forms of identification, of intellectual property and the access to technology and knowledge, filter mechanisms and internet communication in general. Marcelo Thompson Mello Guimaraes was a guest researcher at the Hans Bredow Institute in May/June 2008 and participated, among other things, in the symposium “Equal Opportunity for Networks and Platforms?” The period of research was supported by the Institute as well as the Alcatel-Lucent Foundation.