Interview with Professor Zaneta Robinson (JD ’03) 

Growing up, Professor Zaneta Robinson (JD ’03) had no idea she would one day use her love of hands-on learning to lead the Intellectual Property Law Clinic at Wake Forest Law. 

In fact, she didn’t know she would become a professor at all.

But law school was always in her future—her teachers made sure of that.

Professor Robinson’s journey to the classroom has allowed her to blend her passion for intellectual property law with her commitment to providing students with real-world experiences. Today, she serves as the director of the Intellectual Property Law Clinic, where law students provide legal services to entrepreneurs and emerging businesses while also gaining invaluable hands-on experience under her mentorship.

As professor and founding director of the clinic, Professor Robinson is not only shaping future lawyers inside the classroom but also changing lives beyond it. From helping a young child and her mother secure a trademark for their business to advocating for the intellectual property rights of Indigenous communities, her work makes a real difference.

Now that she has tenure, Professor Robinson plans to build on the questions she began raising through her scholarship—exploring the intersections of intellectual property and language—while continuing to help the next generation of lawyers navigate an ever-evolving legal landscape.

Learn more about Professor Robinson in the interview below.

How did you decide to become a lawyer? 

It really wasn’t a conscious decision at first. I was encouraged to go to law school, probably beginning as early as eighth grade. It was one of those things where I heard it enough that I was convinced that becoming a lawyer was what I should do. 

Was it your parents who encouraged you to go to law school?

Interestingly, no. My parents are directly responsible for my ambition. They worked really hard, made a lot of sacrifices, and made formal and informal education a priority. They may have had ideas about future careers. But they never really said, “You should do this,” or, “You should do that.” It was understood that I would go to college, but we really didn’t talk about that in detail. Like most in my generation, I chose where to apply, drafted my own applications and personal statements, and figured out the FAFSA on my own. 

My parents say I was always outgoing and expressive. It was my teachers who said, “You should go to law school. You’re comfortable talking in front of people. You could go to court.” Looking back, I guess it made sense. I participated in lots of different activities that required public speaking because I was told I was good at it. It may have looked like I was very comfortable speaking in front of others and very confident, but I really wasn’t. What I thought was a false belief led to a brief stint as a mass communications major in college, but I dropped it when I realized public speaking was a required course. Getting graded for public speaking? No, thank you.

Did you have a favorite subject in school?

I really liked high school biology because it was very hands-on. Any subject where I could have some—oddly enough, I’d never made this connection—application to what we were learning about—those were the classes that I enjoyed the most. I never really made that connection, which is funny because now I’m in experiential learning <laughs>. Wow, that’s illuminating. 

How did you decide to become a professor? 

I didn’t, honestly. I fell into it. While I was an adjunct at UNC-Chapel Hill, I realized I loved teaching. It was rewarding to me because I was in a position to show students what law practice really looks like: It’s very different from what you expect. I wish I had known these things. Let me help you figure out how to marry what you’re learning in class to what you’ll need to do in practice. 

My favorite part of my job is watching students grow personally and professionally. I meet students at the beginning of the semester when they understand the theory. And then a few classes in, they may begin to feel like they don’t know as much as they thought, which is probably accurate <laughs>. It gets a little bumpy in the middle. And the whole time I’m assuring them: I promise you, it’s all going to make sense, and you’re going to feel more confident as we move forward. You’ve got this. Understandably, there’s a degree of uncertainty when you introduce a client into the mix. 

Students want to have the answer and want to make the client happy. And sometimes the facts and circumstances don’t necessarily lend themselves to what the client thinks will make them happy <laughs>. I love helping students get more comfortable with uncertainty and seeing that progression over the semester.

My teachers, whether they were teachers in K-12 or professors at the undergraduate or law school level, were very instrumental in guiding me towards teaching because most of them were incredible people. It didn’t feel like they were pushing me, and no one ever said you should be a teacher— they just planted the seeds. I owe a great debt to them for showing me how to build confidence and choose my own path. Now, as a professor, I hope I can help students understand that they don’t have to do what everybody else is doing; find a path that works for them. 

You are an expert in intellectual property law. Are there any accepted truths about your area of expertise that you disagree with? 

As it stands, particularly in the United States, certain types of intellectual property rights may only be owned by an individual, entity, or a limited group jointly. Other jurisdictions recognize related rights, often of a cultural nature—that rights could be claimed by a particular community, for example. These rights are often referred to as “traditional knowledge.” It recognizes the contributions and value of Indigenous communities that rely heavily on language in an oral—but not necessarily written—tradition; information passed down from generation to generation, from anything like the use of certain herbs for wellness or processes to treat illnesses.

In the United States, there is no recognition or protection for that type of information. And the reason I think that such protection is important is because otherwise, there is too great a risk of exploitation. Third parties can come in and claim the traditional knowledge, adopt it as their own, and benefit from the knowledge that’s held by these Indigenous communities. Focusing on real-world solutions for this problem is one part of my scholarship journey. I don’t have the answers to what could support such a system in the United States, yet <laughs>. But if there’s one thing I disagree with, it’s the idea that groups can’t claim rights in things like traditional knowledge that may have existed long before any of us ever existed.

How do you see emerging technologies like AI and blockchain impacting intellectual property law in the next 5-10 years?

Obviously, it’s going to be hugely impactful. In many ways, it will enhance lawyers’ ability to provide legal services more efficiently. On the other hand, there are opportunities to determine how new technologies fit within the current legal framework. How do we identify creators or who is entitled to ownership? What is protectable and what isn’t? Basic questions about what traditional intellectual property laws cover are going to be revisited or are currently being revisited because of artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence is, theoretically, programmed or learning from human input, but where does human creativity begin and end? At what point is something so obvious, using patent language, for example, that it’s no longer protectable?

The pendulum can swing in so many different ways. But this is not new. The same questions have been asked since Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the Constitution (the Intellectual Property Clause, which “empowers Congress to grant authors and inventors exclusive rights in their writings and discoveries for limited times”) was drafted. We’ve looked at who has rights over and over again with the development of different techniques and technologies—whether it’s the move from VHS tapes to MP3s or sound recordings to sampling. Artificial intelligence is pushing us to revisit old questions with new facts.

There are still some black boxes out there. But I don’t think that the unknown aspects will remain a mystery forever. There is no doubt that artificial intelligence provides opportunities to improve the profession. But at the same time, there will be a lot of things to work through from a legal, ethical, and humanitarian standpoint. 

What is one thing you’ve learned through scholarship that people should know?

There are still so many questions left to be answered, despite the volumes of law review articles, op-eds, and peer-reviewed journals that already exist. There are still opportunities to put on your philosopher hat and think and talk about things that might now seem abstract, but may plant seeds and affect something real and tangible—whether it is a way a court looks at something, or what you are allowed to submit to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), or even the Copyright Office. It’s crazy to see how theory and life come together.

What are some things you’re writing about?

I’m writing about the intersections between trademark registration, the extent to which there are limitations on what can or cannot be registered, and the fact that there are languages around the world dying within the next century. 

We have native languages around the world where we’re down to a thousand speakers or 10 speakers or a single speaker. How carefully have we thought about how we are going to address registration decisions if a word from a threatened language is the subject of a trademark application? There is a system in place, but it has flaws. Examiners are not equipped with enough tools, and there are no meaningful discussions or efforts to inform the public on how the current system works. It is not the USPTO’s examiners’ fault. The trademark examining procedure and application platform are not designed to fully address language death or extinction. I think they should.

Now that you have tenure, what is next for you as a professor? What’s next for your scholarship?

I want to build on the questions that I’ve started raising, and there are topics I foreshadow in each piece. The first article, “Trademark Law as an Accessory Dead Language Death,” will be published by Rutgers University Law Review this summer. The second piece is “Corpus Linguistics and the Trademark Doctrine of Foreign Equivalence,” which will be published by the Texas Journal of Intellectual Property. There will likely be more articles on language. After that, I plan to take a deeper dive into the question of, “To what extent can we recognize cultural contributions by groups?” Which is not a concept that we embrace in the United States right now.

Every person’s contributions to the world are important, and the people who are making the contributions should be the ones to benefit. I think there’s space for culture and language to coexist with intellectual property rights, without either philosophical approach eclipsing the other one. But we’re not there yet.

What are your strategies for success? 

Two things. First, goal setting. This is something that I was told as a very early-stage lawyer, and it always sounded hokey, like “Where do you see yourself in five years?” I thought it was crazy. As a new lawyer, I was just happy to be able to start tackling my student loan debt. For baby lawyers, maybe five years is ambitious. But, one year, two years—that’s not unrealistic. It’s hard to get to a place where you’re comfortable if you have no idea where you’re going. Uncertainty can just leave you running around in circles. 

The other piece to that is being open to things that present themselves that you may have never considered; being open to pivoting. I never, ever envisioned being a full-time law professor—this was not a goal for me. Once I got into the classroom and realized how much fun I was having and the satisfaction I was getting from seeing students blossom, I thought, “This law professor thing seems really cool.” And I did eventually set that goal for myself. But coming right out of Wake Forest Law? Absolutely not. I got to that point because I was open to opportunities that I never would’ve dreamed of.

Helping students recognize and accept that everyone does not have the same path is important to you. Tell me more about that.

Students think, when they come in as a 1L, that everyone has a playbook that they don’t have. A few might, but law school is fertile ground for figuring out where you may fit into the broader legal community. There’s a lot of space and opportunity for students to chart their own path. It’s important to recognize that the person you were before you came to law school does not cease to exist. You should keep in mind things that are true to you, whether it is things that you’re passionate about, your working style—think about who you are as an individual, and that will likely lead to a much more positive and long-term experience as a participating member of the legal community. 

You enjoy listening to audiobooks and podcasts. What are you listening to right now?

One that I listen to somewhat routinely is “What Now?” with Trevor Noah. Trevor Noah’s first book, Born a Crime, is what inspired my first article. He had such a fascinating experience growing up in South Africa under apartheid. There is a chapter in his book where he talks about going to what we in the States would consider the senior prom. And despite the fact that he speaks at least five languages, he was unable to speak in his prom date’s mother tongue, and chaos ensued.

I was fascinated by that. Not solely because of the entertainment value, but it reminded me that people often make assumptions about language and culture, and there are thousands of languages spoken around the world. In the United States, most of us (including myself) are shamefully monolingual. Granted, I still know some Latin, but as a dead language, it doesn’t help much with conversation.

Is there anything else you would like to share?

My first teacher, Sylvia Meadows, helped me get on the right path. I credit her with much of my success because she was one of the first teachers to show a special interest in me. I don’t know this for sure, but I credit her for getting me into what was then called the gifted and talented program. This is significant given when and where I grew up because it wasn’t a common practice for students with my background. She moved away after teaching my kindergarten class. For many years, up until at least fourth grade, she came back to our school and met with me and many other students every year. 

That’s why I love teaching. I think you can really impact a person’s life without even trying sometimes, without pushing someone to do anything. Just supporting them and recognizing whatever talents they have.