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Barbara Lauriat on Intellectual Property, English Muffins and Cabbage Patch Dolls

By Texas Tech University

November 4^th, 2025

Welcome to Rise & Research, where cutting-edge discoveries are made as accessible as your morning coffee. This monthly feature offers a closer look at the transformative research happening on our campus. Pull up a chair as we talk with faculty who are pushing boundaries while creating opportunities for the next generation.

In this third installment, Lucy Greenberg sits down with Barbara Lauriat at Chicken Run to discuss the future of intellectual property law in a rapidly changing landscape.

Barbara Lauriat walks through the doors of Chicken Run. The restaurant with its home cooking, located at the corner of a strip mall, seems a far cry from what Lauriat ate while living in England.

The lawyer and professor spent 15 years studying and researching intellectual property law in the U.K. before returning to the states to be closer to family. But the places she mentions show the years she spent both in dusty British archives and traveling around the world. She casually mentions time spent in places like Wellington, Edinburgh, Rome, Hong Kong and New Delhi, alongside growing up in New Salem, Massachusetts.

“I actually like the beans at breakfast,” she admits to me, referring to the supporting character of the full English breakfast – cast with eggs, ham, tomatoes and what Texans would consider barbecue beans.

We butter the English muffins that come with our meals.

“They just call these muffins in London,” she says.

I make a mental note to be specific with my breakfast order if I find myself in England.

My breakfast mate is one of the leading experts on intellectual property law – it’s why she was recruited to Texas Tech University’s School of Law as the Dean’s Scholar in Intellectual Property (IP).

Lauriat is on a mission to better understand this term that may seem familiar but can feel complicated. She wants to know how it affects an ever-changing world.

Q: How did you decide to go into law? Specifically, into intellectual property law?

A: I suppose, like any kind of precociously argumentative child, people always said I should be a lawyer. But I was more interested in history. I went to community college first and got my associate degree. An advisor there made me aware of a scholarship I was eligible for at Boston University. I applied and got a full ride, and there I studied history and classical civilization. I wanted to continue studying that in graduate school but realized it wasn’t the most practical option. So, I thought I’d go to law school.

I didn’t love my first year of law school, but then I discovered intellectual property law, and I was hooked.

In my second year when I was taking copyright law, I got into my favorite author’s autobiography (Anthony Trollope) and he said something like, ‘Take away from English authors their copyrights, and you will soon take away from England her authors.’ I couldn’t believe Trollope was into this topic I was currently studying. Turns out he tried to negotiate a copyright treaty with the U.S., because there wasn’t bilateral recognition of copyright at the time. Foreign authors could not get copyright protection in the U.S. until 1891. Dickens didn’t love it. Trollope didn’t love it. All these authors we hear about, they were not thrilled about lack of protection in the U.S. which had an enormous population of readers at that time.

I started reading about this and couldn’t believe my interests were coming together. It was all so synchronous. I dove into the history of intellectual property and that ultimately became my dissertation at Oxford University where I got my DPhil after law school.

Q: You’ve mentioned both intellectual property and copyright. Are these the same things?

A: Great question. Intellectual property is an umbrella term that encompasses many things such as copyright, trademark and patents. These are all different kinds of intangible rights that can be protected through the law. Different kinds of IP may protect different aspects of a product.

Q: So, for example, I could own the intellectual property, but someone else could own the trademark?

A: Yes, take, for instance, the case between Costco and Lululemon. Costco began selling leggings that Lululemon felt were too similar to their own. Well, there are multiple parts to the claims they’re making. It isn’t just about the leggings. It’s about things like the words that were used in relation to some of the jackets and sweatshirts Costco was selling. That’s probably the strongest part of Lululemon’s case in my opinion.

When it comes to the leggings, Lululemon makes a great product that people are willing to spend money on. But should that stop other businesses from being able to manufacture good leggings that they can sell at a cheaper price? That’s where intellectual property law gets tricky.

Q: If you had to explain intellectual property on a third-grade level, how would you do that?

A: I would tell them this story.

When I was about 5 years old, our family didn’t have much money. Well, this was the 1980s and Cabbage Patch Kids were a big thing. It was essential that, as a 5 year-old, I have one of those dolls. They were quite hideous, but I wanted one. My dear mother and my late grandmother who was a very talented seamstress went to the store, and they got materials to make me one of these dolls. They presented it to me on my birthday, and I burst into tears. Even though it was a similarly ugly looking doll with a plastic head and a soft body, I knew it was not a real Cabbage Patch Kid.

But how did I know that? As a child I could see this was an imitation. I wanted a real Cabbage Patch Kid. But is it a bad thing that a company, or my mother in this case, makes something that looks a bit like something else? What if it’s a good product that can be made cheaper and reach markets for people like my family, who couldn’t afford a Cabbage Patch Doll? Do we want to keep that competition from happening?

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Q: You’ve studied and taught all over the world. What drew you to Texas Tech?

A: I wanted to leave London. I lived there for a long time, and it’s not an easy city to live in. I was fortunate in the fact that Texas Tech recruited me. I’d never heard of Lubbock; I’d never even been to Texas before. I knew nothing. They flew me out and I was struck by how nice everyone was. I went to the campus for an interview, and I walked into the School of Law, and I just thought, ‘I really like this place. I like the vibe. I want to work here.’ When they gave me a tour, one thing that struck me was how the faculty knew students by name. It seemed like a nice community, and that first impression has proven to be correct. I also love Prairie Dog Town.

Q: Why does intellectual property matter to the everyday citizen? How might I come across a situation in my everyday life where I need to know some of the basics?

A: I would say it’s becoming increasingly important for the average person to have some intellectual property literacy because digital technology makes it easier for everyone to be creators, inventors, consumers and users – and potentially infringers – all at the same time without knowing it.

The rights of intellectual property owners and users are bound by the law, so without understanding the legal essentials, you don’t always know what you own, what other people own, and you often can’t figure out what you’re allowed to do with what other people do own.

Intellectual Property law is not a required subject in law schools so even lawyers often have trouble with these issues. In the past, it was considered a niche area of practice. The public needs to know more about the basics of IP law, and we lawyers – or at least myself – should do a better job of getting information out there.

Q: Why is Chicken Run your breakfast pick?

A: They have a large menu here, so I can order different things depending what mood I’m in. And when I bring guests to Lubbock, it’s nice to take them somewhere where there’s a bit of everything on the menu. If I’m in the mood for a skillet with bacon, they have that. But they also have green juice.

Q: What does From Here, It’s Possible™ mean to you?

A: If I can go to community college in western Massachusetts and end up getting a doctorate from Oxford and become a law professor, then certainly I would think that a student at a major research university is going to come across just as many, if not more, opportunities. It’s all about making sure you’re open to them. Texas Tech provides so many open doors; it’s just a matter of how much you want them.

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What's For Breakfast?

Chicken Run

1910 Quaker Ave.

Suite 200

Lubbock, Texas 79407

· Two-Egg Breakfast

· Costa Rican Chicken & Avocado Omelet

· House Coffee

About Barbara Lauriat

Degrees: A.A. Mount Wachusett Community College, 1998; B.A. Boston University, 2001; J.D. Boston University School of Law, 2004; DPhil, University of Oxford, 2013.

Follow her work on LinkedIn.

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