Faces Behind the Course: Meet Nari and Vera and Their Journey Linking Trademarks, Branding, and Sustainability

“Brands, Trademark Law, and Sustainability – Lessons from/for the Global South” is the first-ever course hosted by Hanken School of Economics through the UniPID platform. We interviewed Nari and Vera, the course teachers, who shared their backgrounds, experience, and curiosity for exploring brands and trademarks within the context of more sustainable futures.

Nari and Vera kindly accepted our invitation to introduce themselves and share insights into what students can expect from their upcoming course, which will be offered in Spring 2026 and is already open for registration here.

As the course sits within the field of intellectual property (IP) law, both instructors are an excellent fit, bringing extensive experience and expertise in this area.

Nari Lee is a professor of IP at the leading business school in Finland – Hanken School of Economics. She is also the deputy director of the IPR University Center of Finland. She has been teaching and researching IP for about 30 years, including at such leading institutions as the Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property and Competition Law, the University of Cambridge, New York University, and Nagoya University.

Vera Sevastianova is finishing her doctoral thesis at Hanken under the guidance of Professor Lee. Before joining Hanken, Vera worked as a consulting and in-house lawyer in IP. At Hanken, she is currently conducting research in trademark law and teaches modules on both trademarks and IP strategy.

Why do you teach this course?

At Hanken, we teach various general IP-related courses, but we have not had a separate course on trademarks yet. Since we have experience in teaching and researching trademark law and see interesting trends currently emerging in this field, we decided to build a course on trademarks for both students at Hanken and a wider community through the UniPID Virtual Studies Programme.

The goal is to explain to students who specialize in business or other non-law studies that there are legal implications in, for instance, any marketing campaign. At the same time, we want to incorporate broader sustainability and Global South issues so that knowledge of trademark law is immediately perceived as part of the more complex world that is our reality.

Why should students take the course?

Trademarks are the legal foundation of what we commonly call brands. While brand concepts are widely understood, trademarks themselves are often overlooked, even by experienced professionals. Yet companies rely on them daily to protect names and logos.

Given that many companies manage their brands in some way, they must understand what legal protection exists for brands to avoid infringing others’ rights and to protect themselves from intentionally unscrupulous activity or accidental wrongdoing.

With our course, we primarily aim to disseminate knowledge about trademarks to a broader audience to support their future success in the market, whether they become entrepreneurs or are employed by a company.

Our course goes beyond the legal basics. Several themes will be consistently explored throughout our teaching and students’ learning. First, because there is a deep connection between the notions of “brand” and “trademark,” we will show how trademark law both serves and learns from the goals of branding and brand management.

Sustainability is another key theme. Like any legal discipline, trademark law is closely tied to the United Nations’ Goal No. 16, Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions. Recognizing these connections, our discussions during the course will examine trademarks in relation to human rights, environmental protection, entrepreneurship, and more.

Since this course is offered through UniPID, we have also designed it to include perspectives and case examples from the Global South. Many developing countries adopted trademark systems shaped by the Global North. At the same time, multinational companies expanded their brands into the Global South and used trademark laws to protect them. Sometimes even challenging free-speech or public-interest efforts that criticized harmful business practices. Examining these dynamics offers an important and often overlooked perspective on trademark law.

In short, the course promises not only specific, practical knowledge of trademark law but also insights into its interconnections with other pressing topics – from brand management to sustainability and the Global South.

How do you update your course?

We will teach this course for the first time in Spring 2026, so we can share how we are building it now. On the one hand, we will cover the basics of trademark law, referring to international treaties to which Global South countries are also signatories. We will discuss both older and newer cases from the Global North and the Global South. On the other hand, we have been tracking and will use research publications at the intersection of IP law and sustainability, IP law and branding, and IP law and topics relevant to the Global South, such as cultural heritage and Western hegemony. We are also speaking with colleagues in the Global South to find compelling stories and understand the real concerns of people living far from us in Finland.

Can you recommend podcasts, literature, movies, etc., that discuss the themes of your course?

There is one great book that unites the topics of brands and sustainable development, including in the Global South: ‘No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies’ by Naomi Klein. The book is recommended by both marketing and trademark scholars as a deep, background narrative on issues that are not always addressed in IP law classes. It is not the most recent publication, but it is still relevant for us all.

What inspires you with respect to teaching your course?

As researchers, we are inspired by interdisciplinary studies that explore deeper connections between different topics. As teachers, we are fascinated by the thought-provoking questions from our students – those who see legal norms or court judgments and immediately grasp inconsistencies or additional layers of context that others might miss. Our course for the UniPID will likely involve both aspects, which is why we are very much looking forward to 2026 to offering this course to new students.

A warm thank you Nari and Vera for sharing your background and the thinking that shaped this exciting new course. We’re delighted to welcome your first offering to the UniPID platform.

To our UniPID community: we invite you to explore the course content, and to secure your spot by 5 January 2026 here. We hope to see many of you there!