Session 3: Comparative Experience and Potential Reform

On Saturday 21 March 2026, the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law (CIPIL) held its Annual Spring Conference entitled 'Abuse of Intellectual Property Rights'

In Crypto Open Patent Alliance v Wright [2024] EWHC 1809 (Ch), [63], Mellor J. observed

“IP rights, being monopolies of various sorts, are … justified in that their net benefit is in the public interest, with a view to fostering creativity and innovation. By corollary, where IP rights are abused to stifle creativity and innovation, the legal system ought to have the means to respond effectively.”

The statement raises three questions which are the subject of this conference: (i) when are IP rights to be regarded as “abused”? (ii) What mechanisms exist to respond to such abuses? And (iii) Does the legal system have sufficient mechanisms by which to “respond effectively”?

Programme:

Abuses (This session not recorded)

- Abuses of Trade Marks – Stuart Baran (3 New Square)

- Abuses of Designs – David Stone (White & Case)

- Abuse in FRAND Patent Litigation – Daniel Alexander KC (8 New Square)

Current Disinventives and Remedies

- Remedies for Abuses: Actions for Threats – Trevor Cook (Bird and Bird)

- Preventing Misuse of interim injunctions: The Cross-Undertaking - Dr Katarina Foss-Solbrekk (University of Copenhagen)

- Remedies for Abuses: The Role and Limits of Competition Law to Prevent Enforcement of Invalid IPRs– Dr Quentin Schaefer (11 South Square)

- Preventing Abuses: Ethical Obligations of Patent and Trade Mark Attorneys – Phil Barnes (BarnesIP)

Comparative Experience and Potential Reform

- Does the UK Need a Distinct Doctrine of Abuse of Right? – Lessons from the Civil Law – Dr Amandine Leonard (University of Edinburgh)

- Abuse of IP Rights. Lessons from the United States? Professor Leah Grinwald (Dean and Richard J. Morgan Professor of Law, University of Nevada)

For more information see:

https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-spring-conference

Full title: 'Does the UK Need a Distinct Doctrine of Abuse of Right? – Lessons from the Civil Law'

Session 3: Comparative Experience and Potential Reform

On Saturday 21 March 2026, the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law (CIPIL) held its Annual Spring Conference entitled 'Abuse of Intellectual Property Rights'

In Crypto Open Patent Alliance v Wright [2024] EWHC 1809 (Ch), [63], Mellor J. observed

“IP rights, being monopolies of various sorts, are … justified in that their net benefit is in the public interest, with a view to fostering creativity and innovation. By corollary, where IP rights are abused to stifle creativity and innovation, the legal system ought to have the means to respond effectively.”

The statement raises three questions which are the subject of this conference: (i) when are IP rights to be regarded as “abused”? (ii) What mechanisms exist to respond to such abuses? And (iii) Does the legal system have sufficient mechanisms by which to “respond effectively”?

Programme:

Abuses (This session not recorded)

- Abuses of Trade Marks – Stuart Baran (3 New Square)

- Abuses of Designs – David Stone (White & Case)

- Abuse in FRAND Patent Litigation – Daniel Alexander KC (8 New Square)

Current Disinventives and Remedies

- Remedies for Abuses: Actions for Threats – Trevor Cook (Bird and Bird)

- Preventing Misuse of interim injunctions: The Cross-Undertaking - Dr Katarina Foss-Solbrekk (University of Copenhagen)

- Remedies for Abuses: The Role and Limits of Competition Law to Prevent Enforcement of Invalid IPRs– Dr Quentin Schaefer (11 South Square)

- Preventing Abuses: Ethical Obligations of Patent and Trade Mark Attorneys – Phil Barnes (BarnesIP)

Comparative Experience and Potential Reform

- Does the UK Need a Distinct Doctrine of Abuse of Right? – Lessons from the Civil Law – Dr Amandine Leonard (University of Edinburgh)

- Abuse of IP Rights. Lessons from the United States? Professor Leah Grinwald (Dean and Richard J. Morgan Professor of Law, University of Nevada)

For more information see:

https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-spring-conference

Session 2: Current Disincentives and Remedies

On Saturday 21 March 2026, the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law (CIPIL) held its Annual Spring Conference entitled 'Abuse of Intellectual Property Rights'

In Crypto Open Patent Alliance v Wright [2024] EWHC 1809 (Ch), [63], Mellor J. observed

“IP rights, being monopolies of various sorts, are … justified in that their net benefit is in the public interest, with a view to fostering creativity and innovation. By corollary, where IP rights are abused to stifle creativity and innovation, the legal system ought to have the means to respond effectively.”

The statement raises three questions which are the subject of this conference: (i) when are IP rights to be regarded as “abused”? (ii) What mechanisms exist to respond to such abuses? And (iii) Does the legal system have sufficient mechanisms by which to “respond effectively”?

Programme:

Abuses (This session not recorded)

- Abuses of Trade Marks – Stuart Baran (3 New Square)

- Abuses of Designs – David Stone (White & Case)

- Abuse in FRAND Patent Litigation – Daniel Alexander KC (8 New Square)

Current Disinventives and Remedies

- Remedies for Abuses: Actions for Threats – Trevor Cook (Bird and Bird)

- Preventing Misuse of interim injunctions: The Cross-Undertaking - Dr Katarina Foss-Solbrekk (University of Copenhagen)

- Remedies for Abuses: The Role and Limits of Competition Law to Prevent Enforcement of Invalid IPRs– Dr Quentin Schaefer (11 South Square)

- Preventing Abuses: Ethical Obligations of Patent and Trade Mark Attorneys – Phil Barnes (BarnesIP)

Comparative Experience and Potential Reform

- Does the UK Need a Distinct Doctrine of Abuse of Right? – Lessons from the Civil Law – Dr Amandine Leonard (University of Edinburgh)

- Abuse of IP Rights. Lessons from the United States? Professor Leah Grinwald (Dean and Richard J. Morgan Professor of Law, University of Nevada)

For more information see:

https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-spring-conference

Session 2: Current Disincentives and Remedies

On Saturday 21 March 2026, the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law (CIPIL) held its Annual Spring Conference entitled 'Abuse of Intellectual Property Rights'

In Crypto Open Patent Alliance v Wright [2024] EWHC 1809 (Ch), [63], Mellor J. observed

“IP rights, being monopolies of various sorts, are … justified in that their net benefit is in the public interest, with a view to fostering creativity and innovation. By corollary, where IP rights are abused to stifle creativity and innovation, the legal system ought to have the means to respond effectively.”

The statement raises three questions which are the subject of this conference: (i) when are IP rights to be regarded as “abused”? (ii) What mechanisms exist to respond to such abuses? And (iii) Does the legal system have sufficient mechanisms by which to “respond effectively”?

Programme:

Abuses (This session not recorded)

- Abuses of Trade Marks – Stuart Baran (3 New Square)

- Abuses of Designs – David Stone (White & Case)

- Abuse in FRAND Patent Litigation – Daniel Alexander KC (8 New Square)

Current Disinventives and Remedies

- Remedies for Abuses: Actions for Threats – Trevor Cook (Bird and Bird)

- Preventing Misuse of interim injunctions: The Cross-Undertaking - Dr Katarina Foss-Solbrekk (University of Copenhagen)

- Remedies for Abuses: The Role and Limits of Competition Law to Prevent Enforcement of Invalid IPRs– Dr Quentin Schaefer (11 South Square)

- Preventing Abuses: Ethical Obligations of Patent and Trade Mark Attorneys – Phil Barnes (BarnesIP)

Comparative Experience and Potential Reform

- Does the UK Need a Distinct Doctrine of Abuse of Right? – Lessons from the Civil Law – Dr Amandine Leonard (University of Edinburgh)

- Abuse of IP Rights. Lessons from the United States? Professor Leah Grinwald (Dean and Richard J. Morgan Professor of Law, University of Nevada)

For more information see:

https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-spring-conference

Session 2: Current Disincentives and Remedies

On Saturday 21 March 2026, the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law (CIPIL) held its Annual Spring Conference entitled 'Abuse of Intellectual Property Rights'

In Crypto Open Patent Alliance v Wright [2024] EWHC 1809 (Ch), [63], Mellor J. observed

“IP rights, being monopolies of various sorts, are … justified in that their net benefit is in the public interest, with a view to fostering creativity and innovation. By corollary, where IP rights are abused to stifle creativity and innovation, the legal system ought to have the means to respond effectively.”

The statement raises three questions which are the subject of this conference: (i) when are IP rights to be regarded as “abused”? (ii) What mechanisms exist to respond to such abuses? And (iii) Does the legal system have sufficient mechanisms by which to “respond effectively”?

Programme:

Abuses (This session not recorded)

- Abuses of Trade Marks – Stuart Baran (3 New Square)

- Abuses of Designs – David Stone (White & Case)

- Abuse in FRAND Patent Litigation – Daniel Alexander KC (8 New Square)

Current Disinventives and Remedies

- Remedies for Abuses: Actions for Threats – Trevor Cook (Bird and Bird)

- Preventing Misuse of interim injunctions: The Cross-Undertaking - Dr Katarina Foss-Solbrekk (University of Copenhagen)

- Remedies for Abuses: The Role and Limits of Competition Law to Prevent Enforcement of Invalid IPRs– Dr Quentin Schaefer (11 South Square)

- Preventing Abuses: Ethical Obligations of Patent and Trade Mark Attorneys – Phil Barnes (BarnesIP)

Comparative Experience and Potential Reform

- Does the UK Need a Distinct Doctrine of Abuse of Right? – Lessons from the Civil Law – Dr Amandine Leonard (University of Edinburgh)

- Abuse of IP Rights. Lessons from the United States? Professor Leah Grinwald (Dean and Richard J. Morgan Professor of Law, University of Nevada)

For more information see:

https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-spring-conference

Session 2: Current Disincentives and Remedies

On Saturday 21 March 2026, the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law (CIPIL) held its Annual Spring Conference entitled 'Abuse of Intellectual Property Rights'

In Crypto Open Patent Alliance v Wright [2024] EWHC 1809 (Ch), [63], Mellor J. observed

“IP rights, being monopolies of various sorts, are … justified in that their net benefit is in the public interest, with a view to fostering creativity and innovation. By corollary, where IP rights are abused to stifle creativity and innovation, the legal system ought to have the means to respond effectively.”

The statement raises three questions which are the subject of this conference: (i) when are IP rights to be regarded as “abused”? (ii) What mechanisms exist to respond to such abuses? And (iii) Does the legal system have sufficient mechanisms by which to “respond effectively”?

Programme:

Abuses (This session not recorded)

- Abuses of Trade Marks – Stuart Baran (3 New Square)

- Abuses of Designs – David Stone (White & Case)

- Abuse in FRAND Patent Litigation – Daniel Alexander KC (8 New Square)

Current Disinventives and Remedies

- Remedies for Abuses: Actions for Threats – Trevor Cook (Bird and Bird)

- Preventing Misuse of interim injunctions: The Cross-Undertaking - Dr Katarina Foss-Solbrekk (University of Copenhagen)

- Remedies for Abuses: The Role and Limits of Competition Law to Prevent Enforcement of Invalid IPRs– Dr Quentin Schaefer (11 South Square)

- Preventing Abuses: Ethical Obligations of Patent and Trade Mark Attorneys – Phil Barnes (BarnesIP)

Comparative Experience and Potential Reform

- Does the UK Need a Distinct Doctrine of Abuse of Right? – Lessons from the Civil Law – Dr Amandine Leonard (University of Edinburgh)

- Abuse of IP Rights. Lessons from the United States? Professor Leah Grinwald (Dean and Richard J. Morgan Professor of Law, University of Nevada)

For more information see:

https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-spring-conference

The lecture entitled 'Thirty Plus One: TRIPS, Innovation, and the Political Future of Minimum IP Standards' took place at Emmanuel College, Cambridge.

For more information see:

https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/

Biography: David A. Simon, J.D., LL.M., Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Law at Northeastern University School of Law, where he teaches courses on tort law, administrative law, and drug & device regulation. Professor Simon’s research focuses on innovation in healthcare, with an emphasis on drugs and devices. His work has appeared or will appear in a variety of publications, including the Texas Law Review, the Boston College Law Review, the Emory Law Journal, the Georgia Law Review, the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, the Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities, the Journal of Law & the Biosciences, JAMA, Nature Biotechnology and the Journal of Law, Medicine, & Ethics. A complete list of Dr. Simon’s publications is available on his CV . Professor Simon is the Principal Investigator on the Project on Medical Device Safety and co-director of the Amy J. Reed Collaborative for Medical Device Safety, funded by Arnold Ventures. He is also a member of the UIUC CLASSICA research team, a project funded by the European Union. He has previously served on the faculties of Harvard Law School, George Washington University Law School, and the University of Kansas School of Law. During histime at Harvard Law School, he led a three-year project at the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics dubbed Diagnosing in the Home: The Ethical, Legal, and Regulatory Challenges and Opportunities of Digital Home Health, and funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. Professor Simon is also a founder of two nonprofits—Harmed Americans for Reform in Medical-Device Safety and Project TCF20—and a practicing member of the Illinois and Massachusetts Bars.

Abstract: Copyright law grants authors special non-economic “moral rights” to prevent others from using their works in certain ways. In their strongest “solipsistic” form, moral rights give the author the absolute power to prevent any use that offends her sensibilities. While the solipsistic view of moral rights exists in only a few countries, the sentiment underlying it is pervasive in moral rights theory: an author’s claims are superior to all others because only the author knows when harm occurs, regardless of others’ views. In other words, certain uses of works result in the author experiencing harm that no one else can experience and that does not depend on what others think. This Article asks and evaluates the following question: can harm based only on the author’s subjective experience justify solipsistic moral rights?

It argues that the answer is probably not—and that, if supported, solipsistic moral rights will be tightly limited. Drawing on literature in science fiction and philosophy, this Article. contends that the best justification for the monastic view is also the most implausible: authors have moral rights only when another’s use causes the author to experience an inconsistency between her perceived use of the work and her memories of creating the work. In short, an author’s rights are contingent on her ability to remember creating her work. This is the best justification because the author’s memories of creating the work satisfy all the requirements for authorial harm: it identifies discrete psychological states that are tied directly and only to the author’s acts of creation, independent of others’ perceptions. It is the least plausible, however, because it conditions important rights on one’s ability to remember past actions. Despite its seeming implausibility, the author’s memories of creation provide the best support for grounding monastic moral rights. As a consequence, the case for monastic moral rights, if it can be made, is tightly limited to cases where another’s use of an author’s work causes a negative psychological response directly tied to the author’s memories of creating the work.

For more information see:

https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-seminars

Biography: Christopher Stothers is a partner at Freshfields in London and Dublin and an experienced patent litigator, managing strategic, cross-border disputes around Europe and beyond for over 20 years. He has acted as a legal practitioner in many oppositions and appeals before the European Patent Office and as a UPC Representative in several local divisions and the Court of Appeal. He supervised IP students at Downing and St Catharine’s between 2004-2007, and since then has taught part-time at UCL where he is an Honorary Professor of Practice.

Abstract: International patent law has undergone piecemeal harmonisation over many years, from WIPO’s Paris Convention of 1883 through the Strasbourg Convention of 1963, the Patent Cooperation Treaty of 1970, the European Patent Convention of 1973, the (never ratified) Community Patent Conventions of 1975 and 1989, the TRIPS Agreement of 1994, the London Agreement of 2000 and the UPC Agreement of 2013. Despite these efforts, patent porfolios are typically still maintained and enforced on a strategic territorial basis, which in bigger cases often leads to cross-border disputes, particularly over standard essential patents and important pharmaceutical patents. The last decade has seen the re-emergence of cross-border enforcement by courts, including retaliatory anti-suit, anti-anti-suit, anti-enforcement and now anti-interim licence injunctions. Christopher has been involved in cross-border patent enforcement for over 20 years and will talk about the changes he has seen (and what is coming in the future).

For more information see:

https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-seminars

Biography: Dr Svitlana Lebedenko specialises in innovation and industrial policy, law and technology, and intellectual property law. She is currently an Assistant Professor in the School of Law at the University of Warwick and a part-time Assistant Professor at the European University Institute, contributing to the Global Governance Programme of the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies. Previously, she was a Hauser Global Fellow at New York University School of Law's Engelberg Center on Innovation Law & Policy, a Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute, a Research Fellow at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, and a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Copenhagen's Center for Advanced Studies in Bioscience Innovation Law. Her first book, Russian Innovation and Intellectual Property: From Communism to Capitalism, is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press in 2026.

Abstract: Intellectual property has mainly been studied from the institutional and systems perspectives. While both have produced useful insights, neither really explains the spread of intellectual property, which, despite its numerous institutional failures, has never been rolled back. The talk introduces a technology perspective on intellectual property to provide a macro-level explanation of this phenomenon of resilience. Two propositions arise from conceptualising intellectual property as a technology. First, the efficiency and neutrality theses of technology serve as intellectual property anchors. Second, the evolutionary nature of technology means that changes to the tools of knowledge governance that may occur are likely to be bound by the limits of the dominant technological (intellectual property) paradigm. The talk will conclude by considering the descriptive and normative value of this technology perspective.

For more information see:

https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-seminars

Biography: Dr Poorna Mysoor is a Fellow in Law at Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge. She was a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow at Oxford Law Faculty. She is the author of two books, Copyright as Personal Property (2025) and Implied Licences in Copyright Law (2021), both published with Oxford University Press, and of other peer reviewed journals articles. Poorna obtained her undergraduate law degree at NLSIU, Bangalore, LLM from SOAS, University of London and DPhil from Oxford Law Faculty. Before embarking on her doctorate, Poorna practised intellectual property law for several years in Hong Kong and was a litigator in India.

Abstract: Many scholars argue that recognising copyright as a property right leads to expansion. The argument is that property rights empower the owners disproportionately with little regard to the interests of other stakeholders. In this presentation the speaker seeks not only to debunk this argument to show instead the limiting role played by property rights and its impact on copyright. Drawing from her recently published monograph, ‘Copyright as Personal Property’ the speaker will put forward relevant analogies from land law and personal property law in support of her arguments. She seeks to demonstrate tat copyright expansion can indeed be reined in by adopting, and not disregarding, the property framework in the characterisation of copyright.

For more information see:

https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-seminars

In this talk, Jon Penney explores key themes from his new book Chilling Effects: Repression, Conformity, and Power in the Digital Age (Cambridge University Press, 2025), which examines the increasing weaponization of surveillance, censorship, and new technology to repress and control us. With corporations, governments, and extremists employing big data, artificial intelligence, FRT, cyber-mobs, and other technological threats to limit our rights and freedoms, concerns about chilling effects—or how these activities deter us from exercising our rights—have become urgent. Penney draws on law, privacy theory, and social science to present a new conformity theory that highlights the dangers of chilling effects and their potential to erode democracy and enable a more illiberal future. Following the book’s urgent and timely message, he sheds light on the repressive and conforming effects of technology, state, and corporate power and offers a roadmap of how to respond to their weaponization today and tomorrow.

Biography: Jon Penney is a legal scholar and social scientist at Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, Toronto, where he is an Associate Professor and holds the York Research Chair in Artificial Intelligence, Data Governance, and the Law. He is also a Faculty Associate at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society and Senior Research Fellow at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab. His award-winning research on privacy, technology, and human rights has received national and international attention, including coverage in the Washington Post, the New York Times, Reuters International, The Guardian, and Le Monde, among others, and has been profiled in WIRED and Harvard Magazine.

For more information see:

https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-seminars

https://www.cpl.law.cam.ac.uk/

Biography: Timothy Pitt-Payne KC is a leading information law silk based at 11KBW where he has practiced since 1990. He was appointed QC/KC in 2010. His information law practice involves both litigation and advisory work in data protection, freedom of information, access to environmental information, RIPA, human rights issues, privacy, and breach of confidence. His clients have included commercial organisations, the Information Commissioner, numerous regulators, NHS bodies, local authorities, Universities, and private individuals. He has extensive advocacy experience in information law, at all levels from the First-tier Tribunal to the Supreme Court. In addition to information law, he is also active in both public law and employment law.

Abstract: Article 22 of the UK GDPR prohibits certain forms of decision-making based solely on automated processing of personal data. This presentation considers the significance, scope, meaning and justification of Article 22 (as recently amended by the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025). It argues that the provision should remain as part of the UK GDPR, although its scope may require modification. The provision is an outlier within the UK GDPR, in that it is focused specifically on decision-making, rather than on the full range of ways in which personal data can be processed. It applies to decision-makers in both the public and private sector. Much of the debate about the implications of automated decision-making has been focused on decision-making by judges or by public authorities; Article 22 is much wider in scope, with extensive impact on the private sector. I address some of the interpretative difficulties raised by Article 22. For instance, what minimum level of human involvement is required by Article 22? To what extent are any interpretative difficulties resolved by the recent amendments? In relation to the justification for Article 22, I assess possible arguments based on transparency, bias, responsiveness to individual circumstances, and risks of error. I argue that the most convincing justification is based on non-consequentialist arguments broadly relating to human dignity, founded on claims about inherent differences between human and machine capabilities.

For more information see:

https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-seminars

Biography: Lilian Edwards is a leading academic in the field of Internet law. She has taught information technology law, e-commerce law, privacy law and Internet law at undergraduate and postgraduate level since 1996 and been involved with law and artificial intelligence (AI) since 1985. She is now Emerita Professor at Newcastle and Honorary Professor at CREAte, University of Glasgow, which she helped co-found. She is the editor and major author of Law, Policy and the Internet, one of the leading textbooks in the field of Internet law (Hart, 2018, new edition forthcoming with Urquhart and Goanta, 2026). She won the Future of Privacy Forum award in 2019 for best paper ("Slave to the Algorithm" with Michael Veale) and the award for best non-technical paper at FAccT in 2020, on automated hiring. In 2004 she won the Barbara Wellberry Memorial Prize in 2004 for work on online privacy where she invented the notion of data trusts, a concept which ten years later has been proposed in EU legislation. She is a former fellow of the Alan Turing Institute on Law and AI, and the Institute for the Future of Work. Edwards has consulted for inter alia the EU Commission, the OECD, and WIPO.

Abstract: The right to an explanation is having another moment. Well after the heyday of 2016-2018 when scholars tussled over whether the GDPR ( in either art 22 or arts 13-15) conferred a right to explanation, the CJEU case of Dun and Bradstreet has finally confirmed its existence, and the Platform Work Directive has wholesale revamped art 22 in its Algorithmic Management chapter. Most recently the EU AI Act added its own Frankenstein-like right to an explanation (art 86) of AI systems .

None of these provisions however pin down what the essence of the explanation should be, given many notions can be invoked here ; a faithful description of source code or training data; an account that enables challenge or contestation; a “plausible” description that may be appealing in a behaviouralist sense but might be actually misleading when operationalised eg to generate a medical course of treatment. Agarwal et al argue that the tendency of UI designers, and regulators and judges alike to lean towards the plausibility end, may be unsuited to large language models which represent far more of a black box in size and optimisation than conventional machine learning, and which are trained to present encouraging but not always accurate accounts of their workings. Yet this is also the direction of travel taken by CJEU Dun & Bradstreet , above. This paper argues that explanations of large model outputs may present novel challenges needing thoughtful legal mandates.

For more information (and to download slides) see:

https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-seminars

Biography: Bhamati Viswanathan is a Senior Visitor at the University of Cambridge Faculty of Law and a Fellow (Non-Resident) at the Kernochan Center for Law, Media and the Arts at Columbia Law School (New York). Prior to joining the Cambridge Faculty of Law, she was Assistant Professor at New England Law | Boston, where she taught copyright law, artificial intelligence and the law, law and the visual arts, intellectual property law, and U.S. Constitutional law. She is the author of “Cultivating Copyright: How Creative Industries Can Harness Intellectual Property to Survive the Digital Age” (Routledge/Taylor & Francis Press). She currently holds an Edison Fellowship from the Intellectual Property Policy Institute at University of Akron Law School, under whose aegis she is writing a series of articles on the disparate impact of copyright law on women creators and women-centric work. She is also planning a book on the nexus of intellectual property and arts/culture in the age of artificial intelligence.

Bhamati serves as Chair of the American Bar Association Intellectual Property Section: Visual and Dramatics Works Committee. She is a Faculty Advisor on the Copyright Alliance Academic Advisory Board. She serves as Faculty Partner to the News/Media Alliance. She is Education Advisor to the Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts (VLA)/ Massachusetts Arts and Business Council. She is also a Faculty Advisor to the Journal of the Copyright Society; and she was a Trustee of the Copyright Society, as well as Chair of its New England Chapter. She holds an S.J.D./LL.M. from University of Pennsylvania Law School; a J.D. from University of Michigan Law School; and a B.A. from Williams College. She is a competitive figure skater, violinist, and published poet/translator and lives in Boston.

Abstract: The training of generativeAI models on ingested work is a hotly contested area of U.S. copyright law. In this Seminar, I will inquire whether such training may constitute “fair use” under the nonexclusive four-factor test of the U.S. Copyright Act. Currently, courts are wrestling with the fair use defense in several major cases, including Thompson Reuters v. ROSS Intelligence; Bartz v. Anthropic; Kadrey v. Meta; and the consolidated litigation of In re: OpenAI.

Another open question is whether AI outputs infringe copyright in other works. Here, plaintiffs must establish that AI outputs infringe their works by passing the threshold of the “substantial similarity” test. I will discuss the test in the context of AI litigation, and will suggest that the relatively novel “market dilution” theory, focusing on harm caused by stylistically similar outputs, might be applied to weigh against a fair use defense for GenAI training. I will also address whether the theory of “vicarious liability” might be fruitfully brought to bear against certain genAI companies.

Lastly, I will ask what action Congress can, or should, take, with a view to striking a fair balance between meeting the needs of innovative technologies and securing the rights of creative industries and creators. As an example, I will raise a recent proposal (in which I was involved) that Congress explicitly prohibit GenAI training on materials derived from digital repositories of unlicensed materials (so-called “shadow libraries”).

For more information (and to download slides) see:

https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-seminars

Biography: Dr Yin Harn Lee is a Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Bristol. Her research interests lie primarily in copyright law. A significant part of her research focuses on copyright and videogames, and she is also interested in historical aspects of copyright as well as the interface between intellectual property and personal property.

Abstract: The exclusive right to control the copying or reproduction of a work has been described by one leading copyright treatise as ‘the most fundamental, and historically the oldest, right of a copyright owner’. The first British copyright statute, the 1710 Statute of Anne, conferred on rightholders the exclusive right to print and reprint their books. Since then, the right has expanded far beyond its legislative origins, and now encompasses acts of copying in both digital and analogue form, those that are both temporary and permanent, and those that are merely incidental to the use of the work. Scholars have expressed concern about the now-expansive scope of the right, and there have been calls to restrict the right (e.g. by removing ‘non-expressive copying’ and copying that does not enable the use of the material in question ‘as a work’) or to replace it altogether with a broad right of ‘commercial exploitation’.

This paper will show that, while these proposals are laudable and inventive, they nevertheless encounter the same pitfalls as those faced by English courts in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when called upon to define the scope of what constitutes ‘copying’. It will argue that the root of the problem lies in the absence of stable, developed principles for defining the legitimate scope of the rightholder’s market, and that attempts at framing this as a question of statutory interpretation only obscure this fundamental fact.

For more information see:

https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-seminars

Biography: Professor Andrew Christie was the foundation appointment to the Chair of Intellectual Property at the University of Melbourne in 2002.He holds BSc and LLB (Hons) degrees from the University of Melbourne, a LLM from the University of London, and a PhD from the University of Cambridge (Emmanuel College). Admitted to legal practice in Australia and the United Kingdom, he has worked in the intellectual property departments of law firms in Melbourne and London. He is a former Fulbright Senior Scholar, and has held research and teaching appointments at the University of Cambridge, Duke University, the National University of Singapore, and the University of Toronto.

Awarded 12 Australian Research Council grants and instrumental in winning other research funding in excess of $11 million, he has authored more than 120 publications, and delivered by invitation more than 180 public addresses in 20 countries, across all areas of intellectual property law. He has served on all of the Australian government’s advisory committees on intellectual property – the Copyright Law Review Committee, the Advisory Council on Intellectual Property, and the Plant Breeder’s Rights Advisory Committee – and has been an expert advisor to World Intellectual Property Organization on a number of occasions. He currently chairs the Trans-Tasman IP Attorneys Board, the regulator of the Australian and New Zealand patent attorney profession.

Abstract: With more than 18 million patents for inventions in force across 140 jurisdictions, patents are a significant area of the law. However, the traditional justifications for having a patent system are incomplete, and do not take full account of developments in economic thinking that recognise the primary purpose of economics is to enhance human wellbeing. The primary purpose of patents should be likewise. There is sparse academic and policy literature on the relevance of wellbeing economics to patent policy, and what exists leaves unanswered many questions about how the patent system can be used to achieve this policy objective. This presentation answers those questions, by tracing the evolution of wellbeing economics, identifying the doctrinal levers available to implement patent policy, and providing practical examples of the application of those levers to ensure the patent system incentivises innovations that advance wellbeing.

For more information see:

https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-seminars

Session 4: Concluding Thoughts – AI Transforming IP

On Saturday 29th March 2025, the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law (CIPIL) held its Annual Spring Conference entitled 'Is AI Transforming IP?'

For the last few years, lots of attention has been paid to AI and IP. The Supreme Court has already considered whether AI can be regarded as an inventor. There is also on-going litigation, in various jurisdictions, on whether training AI systems with copyright material infringes copyright, in what circumstances the outputs might infringe; as well as when, if at all, AI-generated content, designs or other outputs might be protected by intellectual property rights and, if so, for whose benefit.

While these are important questions that involve the application of the existing understandings of the law to new factual scenarios, the conference moved beyond them to focus on: (i) what AI reveals about existing law; and (ii) how AI might be changing IP, altering the legal tests with which we have become familiar, as well as the assumptions that underlie them – and what the implications might be.

For more information see:

https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-spring-conference

Session 3: AI Transforming the Scope of Protection and Enforcement

On Saturday 29th March 2025, the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law (CIPIL) held its Annual Spring Conference entitled 'Is AI Transforming IP?'

For the last few years, lots of attention has been paid to AI and IP. The Supreme Court has already considered whether AI can be regarded as an inventor. There is also on-going litigation, in various jurisdictions, on whether training AI systems with copyright material infringes copyright, in what circumstances the outputs might infringe; as well as when, if at all, AI-generated content, designs or other outputs might be protected by intellectual property rights and, if so, for whose benefit.

While these are important questions that involve the application of the existing understandings of the law to new factual scenarios, the conference moved beyond them to focus on: (i) what AI reveals about existing law; and (ii) how AI might be changing IP, altering the legal tests with which we have become familiar, as well as the assumptions that underlie them – and what the implications might be.

For more information see:

https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-spring-conference

Session 3: AI Transforming the Scope of Protection and Enforcement

On Saturday 29th March 2025, the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law (CIPIL) held its Annual Spring Conference entitled 'Is AI Transforming IP?'

For the last few years, lots of attention has been paid to AI and IP. The Supreme Court has already considered whether AI can be regarded as an inventor. There is also on-going litigation, in various jurisdictions, on whether training AI systems with copyright material infringes copyright, in what circumstances the outputs might infringe; as well as when, if at all, AI-generated content, designs or other outputs might be protected by intellectual property rights and, if so, for whose benefit.

While these are important questions that involve the application of the existing understandings of the law to new factual scenarios, the conference moved beyond them to focus on: (i) what AI reveals about existing law; and (ii) how AI might be changing IP, altering the legal tests with which we have become familiar, as well as the assumptions that underlie them – and what the implications might be.

For more information see:

https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-spring-conference

Session 3: AI Transforming the Scope of Protection and Enforcement

On Saturday 29th March 2025, the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law (CIPIL) held its Annual Spring Conference entitled 'Is AI Transforming IP?'

For the last few years, lots of attention has been paid to AI and IP. The Supreme Court has already considered whether AI can be regarded as an inventor. There is also on-going litigation, in various jurisdictions, on whether training AI systems with copyright material infringes copyright, in what circumstances the outputs might infringe; as well as when, if at all, AI-generated content, designs or other outputs might be protected by intellectual property rights and, if so, for whose benefit.

While these are important questions that involve the application of the existing understandings of the law to new factual scenarios, the conference moved beyond them to focus on: (i) what AI reveals about existing law; and (ii) how AI might be changing IP, altering the legal tests with which we have become familiar, as well as the assumptions that underlie them – and what the implications might be.

For more information see:

https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-spring-conference

Session 3: AI Transforming the Scope of Protection and Enforcement

On Saturday 29th March 2025, the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law (CIPIL) held its Annual Spring Conference entitled 'Is AI Transforming IP?'

For the last few years, lots of attention has been paid to AI and IP. The Supreme Court has already considered whether AI can be regarded as an inventor. There is also on-going litigation, in various jurisdictions, on whether training AI systems with copyright material infringes copyright, in what circumstances the outputs might infringe; as well as when, if at all, AI-generated content, designs or other outputs might be protected by intellectual property rights and, if so, for whose benefit.

While these are important questions that involve the application of the existing understandings of the law to new factual scenarios, the conference moved beyond them to focus on: (i) what AI reveals about existing law; and (ii) how AI might be changing IP, altering the legal tests with which we have become familiar, as well as the assumptions that underlie them – and what the implications might be.

For more information see:

https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-spring-conference

Session 2: AI Transforming IP Application / Registration Processes and Eligibility Tests

On Saturday 29th March 2025, the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law (CIPIL) held its Annual Spring Conference entitled 'Is AI Transforming IP?'

For the last few years, lots of attention has been paid to AI and IP. The Supreme Court has already considered whether AI can be regarded as an inventor. There is also on-going litigation, in various jurisdictions, on whether training AI systems with copyright material infringes copyright, in what circumstances the outputs might infringe; as well as when, if at all, AI-generated content, designs or other outputs might be protected by intellectual property rights and, if so, for whose benefit.

While these are important questions that involve the application of the existing understandings of the law to new factual scenarios, the conference moved beyond them to focus on: (i) what AI reveals about existing law; and (ii) how AI might be changing IP, altering the legal tests with which we have become familiar, as well as the assumptions that underlie them – and what the implications might be.

For more information see:

https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-spring-conference

Session 2: AI Transforming IP Application / Registration Processes and Eligibility Tests

On Saturday 29th March 2025, the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law (CIPIL) held its Annual Spring Conference entitled 'Is AI Transforming IP?'

For the last few years, lots of attention has been paid to AI and IP. The Supreme Court has already considered whether AI can be regarded as an inventor. There is also on-going litigation, in various jurisdictions, on whether training AI systems with copyright material infringes copyright, in what circumstances the outputs might infringe; as well as when, if at all, AI-generated content, designs or other outputs might be protected by intellectual property rights and, if so, for whose benefit.

While these are important questions that involve the application of the existing understandings of the law to new factual scenarios, the conference moved beyond them to focus on: (i) what AI reveals about existing law; and (ii) how AI might be changing IP, altering the legal tests with which we have become familiar, as well as the assumptions that underlie them – and what the implications might be.

For more information see:

https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-spring-conference

Session 2: AI Transforming IP Application / Registration Processes and Eligibility Tests

On Saturday 29th March 2025, the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law (CIPIL) held its Annual Spring Conference entitled 'Is AI Transforming IP?'

For the last few years, lots of attention has been paid to AI and IP. The Supreme Court has already considered whether AI can be regarded as an inventor. There is also on-going litigation, in various jurisdictions, on whether training AI systems with copyright material infringes copyright, in what circumstances the outputs might infringe; as well as when, if at all, AI-generated content, designs or other outputs might be protected by intellectual property rights and, if so, for whose benefit.

While these are important questions that involve the application of the existing understandings of the law to new factual scenarios, the conference moved beyond them to focus on: (i) what AI reveals about existing law; and (ii) how AI might be changing IP, altering the legal tests with which we have become familiar, as well as the assumptions that underlie them – and what the implications might be.

For more information see:

https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-spring-conference

Session 1: AI Transforming Protected Subject Matter

On Saturday 29th March 2025, the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law (CIPIL) held its Annual Spring Conference entitled 'Is AI Transforming IP?'

For the last few years, lots of attention has been paid to AI and IP. The Supreme Court has already considered whether AI can be regarded as an inventor. There is also on-going litigation, in various jurisdictions, on whether training AI systems with copyright material infringes copyright, in what circumstances the outputs might infringe; as well as when, if at all, AI-generated content, designs or other outputs might be protected by intellectual property rights and, if so, for whose benefit.

While these are important questions that involve the application of the existing understandings of the law to new factual scenarios, the conference moved beyond them to focus on: (i) what AI reveals about existing law; and (ii) how AI might be changing IP, altering the legal tests with which we have become familiar, as well as the assumptions that underlie them – and what the implications might be.

For more information see:

https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-spring-conference

Session 1: AI Transforming Protected Subject Matter

On Saturday 29th March 2025, the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law (CIPIL) held its Annual Spring Conference entitled 'Is AI Transforming IP?'

For the last few years, lots of attention has been paid to AI and IP. The Supreme Court has already considered whether AI can be regarded as an inventor. There is also on-going litigation, in various jurisdictions, on whether training AI systems with copyright material infringes copyright, in what circumstances the outputs might infringe; as well as when, if at all, AI-generated content, designs or other outputs might be protected by intellectual property rights and, if so, for whose benefit.

While these are important questions that involve the application of the existing understandings of the law to new factual scenarios, the conference moved beyond them to focus on: (i) what AI reveals about existing law; and (ii) how AI might be changing IP, altering the legal tests with which we have become familiar, as well as the assumptions that underlie them – and what the implications might be.

For more information see:

https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-spring-conference

Introduction: Primer on AI and Creations of the (Human) Mind

On Saturday 29th March 2025, the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law (CIPIL) held its Annual Spring Conference entitled 'Is AI Transforming IP?'

For the last few years, lots of attention has been paid to AI and IP. The Supreme Court has already considered whether AI can be regarded as an inventor. There is also on-going litigation, in various jurisdictions, on whether training AI systems with copyright material infringes copyright, in what circumstances the outputs might infringe; as well as when, if at all, AI-generated content, designs or other outputs might be protected by intellectual property rights and, if so, for whose benefit.

While these are important questions that involve the application of the existing understandings of the law to new factual scenarios, the conference moved beyond them to focus on: (i) what AI reveals about existing law; and (ii) how AI might be changing IP, altering the legal tests with which we have become familiar, as well as the assumptions that underlie them – and what the implications might be.

For more information see:

https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-spring-conference

The lecture entitled 'Cousins, Not Twins: Patent Claim Scope vs. The Breadth of Patent Enforcement' took place at Emmanuel College, Cambridge.

For more information see:

https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/

Abstract: Innovation thrives on borrowing from creators, past and far-flung. When does cultural exchange cross the line into cultural misappropriation or theft decried as “cultural appropriation”? Notably, today’s culture wars increasingly turn on intellectual property claims, with calls for attending to the legal and ethical implications of dominant cultural creators taking and profiting from the innovations of disadvantaged and minority creators. Black creators embark on a #TikTokStrike to protest white influencers siphoning credit and revenues from black creatives. The Mexican Culture Minister calls out high end fashion labels for stealing local designs. Black dancers sue blockbuster video game Fortnite for copying dance moves without credit or royalties. Native activists challenge racist trademarks. The implication is clear: intellectual property has a cultural appropriation problem. Is intellectual property an appropriate legal tool for addressing cultural appropriation? This Lecture builds on growing scholarship studying dispossession and racial capitalism to consider intellectual property’s role in promoting or stifling recognition and redistribution for diverse creators.

Biography: Madhavi Sunder is the Frank Sherry Professor of Intellectual Property Law at the Georgetown University Law Center. She is a widely published and influential scholar of intellectual property law, law and technology, women’s human rights, and international development. In 2024-2025, she is the Co-director of the Center for Transnational Legal Studies in London.

For more information see:

https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-seminars

Abstract: 2024 was a year for multilateral IP like no other. WIPO Member states adopted two new treaties last year: the WIPO Treaty on IP, Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge and the Riyadh Design Law Treaty. Both were groundbreaking in their mention of one or more of genetic resources, traditional knowledge, traditional cultural expressions, and indigenous peoples and local communities, none of which are standard IP topics and all of which have been controversial additions to the normative work at WIPO. Moreover, both treaties address disclosure of origin for one or more of these controversial areas, another first for a WIPO treaty. I will discuss how these two treaties came to fruition and their ramifications for future multilateral IP treaty-making.

Biography: Margo A. Bagley is Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law at Emory University School of Law. She returned to Emory in 2016 after ten years at the University of Virginia School of Law, where she held the Hardy Cross Dillard chair. She was the Hieken Visiting Professor in Patent Law at Harvard Law School in Fall 2022. Her scholarship focuses on comparative issues relating to patents and biotechnology, pharmaceuticals and access to medicines, and IP and social justice issues. Professor Bagley served on two National Academies Committees on IP matters, is a technical expert to the African Union in World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) matters, and has served as a consultant to several United Nations organizations. She has served as a US Department of Commerce Commercial Law Development Program advisor and currently serves as a member of the U.S. DARPA ELSI Team for the BRACE project. She is an elected member of the American Law Institute and a faculty lecturer with the Munich Intellectual Property Law Center at the Max Planck Institute in Germany, and also has taught patent related courses in China, Cuba, Israel, and Singapore. She has published numerous articles, book chapters, and monographs as well as two books with co-authors with a third on the way. She is registered to practice before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, practiced patent law with both Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner, and Smith, Gambrell and Russell, and has been an expert witness in several patent cases. A chemical engineer by training, Professor Bagley worked in industry for several years before attending law school at Emory where she was a Woodruff Fellow. She is a co-inventor on patents on peanut butter and bedding technology. 

For more information see:

https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-seminars

Abstract: The UK Supreme Court has now given its long (and long-awaited) judgment in SkyKick v. Sky. It concerns the appropriate specification of goods and services as part of a trade mark application. In particular, the UKSC was asked to consider the circumstances in which a party applying for a specification broader than its intended commercial activities can be found to have applied in bad faith.  The UKSC reversed the Court of Appeal on the approach in law, finding that Sky’s trade mark registrations had been sought partly in bad faith, and should be partially invalidated. The Court found infringement of the remaining specification by one of SkyKick’s products, but upheld the Court of Appeal’s finding that there was no infringement by the other. It also found that it enjoyed a continuing jurisdiction to grant EU-wide relief given that these proceedings started before Brexit.  Here I will focus on the part of the judgment about invalidity for bad faith. I will introduce what the Court has decided and its reasons, and then look at three questions: (i) to what extent does this judgment advance the law of invalidity for applying in bad faith?; (ii) is there now a difference between the extent of goods/services for which you can register your mark, and those for which you can enforce it?; and (iii) is this judgment likely to change applicants’ approach to drafting their specifications?

Biography: Dr Stuart Baran is a barrister at specialist intellectual property chambers Three New Square IP. After a degree in chemistry and doctorate in chemical physics, each at Oxford, he was called to the Bar in 2011 and has practised from Three New Square ever since, in all areas of IP but with particular emphases on trade marks and patents. Stuart was lucky to chair the Oxford International IP Moot for several years, starting during his DPhil.  As a barrister, Stuart has appeared unled in every IP forum, from the UKIPO and European Patent Office to the EU General Court and Court of Justice as well as the UK High Court, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court. He has been involved in a number of seminal cases across the IP spectrum, including Actavis v. Lilly, Newron v. Comptroller-General, Sky v. SkyKick, and Thaler v. Comptroller-General.  Alongside his private practice, Stuart is Standing Counsel to the Comptroller-General which means he represents and advises the UKIPO and government departments on intellectual property issues. He was awarded Legal 500 Junior of the Year for IP in 2018; Managing IP Junior of the Year in 2021 and 2024; and was profiled as a JUVE Patent “One to Watch” in 2023. Outside of work he is a keen orchestral violinist, cook and Italophile.

For more information see:

https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-seminars

Abstract: This presentation examines the impact of Brexit on UK data protection law and, using the introduction of the now-defunct Data Protection and Digital Information Bill as a case study, critiques the ongoing reliance on personal data as the core concept underlying UK data protection law and policy. As an alternative, the presentation explores the possibility of a harm-based approach to data protection, which would shift the law’s focus away from the concept of personal data to the notion of information harms. It is contended that an approach in this vein could help to address some of the semantic and practical challenges inherent in the current personal data-based approach and could provide a more sustainable foundation for data protection law moving forward.

Biography: Dr Henry Pearce is a Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Portsmouth. He joined the University in November 2018, having previously been lecturer in law at the University of Hertfordshire from July 2015, and tutor in law at the University of Southampton from December 2012 until June 2015. He is Deputy Editor for Computer Law & Security Review (CLSR) and provides data protection consultancy services to a number of firms based in London and the South of the UK. His research primarily focuses on data protection law and policy, and law and emerging technologies.

For more information see:

https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-seminars

Abstract: Data protection, privacy and copyright may be closely aligned, yet distinctly respond to the common element, that is data – comprising of personal as well as non-personal elements. While data may not be copyright-protected, works (at least in their current form) are copyright-protected. As the Generative AI tools become more advanced, data and copyright-protected works may cease to bear any direct resemblance to pre-existing works. This can be attributed to the rise of synthetic data. While synthetic data may facilitate compliance with the 2016 EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), it also heralds notable challenges for the current IPR (particularly copyright) framework. This interplay between law and technology - in light of its inter- & intra-disciplinary complexity - remains under-explored in the literature. At the CIPIL seminar, Dr. Tyagi presents her research findings on this interplay between copyright (and other IPRs) as well as data protection and privacy in the context of synthetic data and Generative AI.

Biography: Kalpana Tyagi is Assistant Professor of Intellectual Property and Competition Law in the European and International Law Department, Maastricht University. She holds a multidisciplinary PhD (summa cum laude) from the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, Munich where she worked as Max Planck Fellow for Innovation and Competition until 2015. She also holds a bachelor’s degree in marketing and business strategy (I division) from College of Business Studies, New Delhi (2002), a bachelor’s degree in law (I division) from the Department of Law, New Delhi, an LLM degree in International Business Laws (I division) from Singapore and China (2009) and a specialized master in European Law and Economics (magna cum laude) from University of Hamburg, Bologna and Ghent (2012). Her main areas of interest relate to the interface of intellectual property rights and competition law, particularly in the context of digitalization.

For more information see:

https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-seminars

This entry provides an audio source for iTunes.

Abstract: The conclusion of the Agreement on Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) in 1994 sparked a quiet revolution in the global IP system by directing unprecedented scrutiny to the maldistribution of innovation benefits among countries and communities, including Indigenous Peoples’ traditional knowledge. The unauthorized access, use, and commercialization of biological resources raised specific questions about the malleability of acquisitive processes for patents, designs, and trademarks, and galvanized soft and hard law instruments recognizing interests in traditional knowledge and genetic resources that are in tension with dominant IP justifications. This lecture examines the recently concluded WIPO genetic resources treaty - the first formal attempt to overlay Indigenous people’s concerns on the system of global IP rights and administration. The lecture will explore prospects for structural change in IP governance based on the treaty’s design and highlight its implications for IP harmonization that differ starkly from the vision codified in the TRIPS Agreement. Those implications threaten prospects for the equitable allocation of benefits between Indigenous People’s knowledge and other stakeholders in the international IP regime.

Biography: Ruth L. Okediji is the Jeremiah Smith. Jr, Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and Co-Director of the Berkman Klein Center. A renowned scholar in international intellectual property (IP) law and a foremost authority on the role of intellectual property in social and economic development, Professor Okediji has advised inter-governmental organizations, regional economic communities, and national governments on a range of matters related to technology, innovation policy, and development. Her widely cited scholarship on IP and development has influenced government policies in sub-Saharan Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, and South America. Her ideas have helped shape national strategies for the implementation of the WTO’s Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement). She works closely with several United Nations agencies, research centers, and international organizations on the human development effects of international IP policy, including access to knowledge, access to essential medicines and issues related to indigenous innovation systems.

For more information see:

https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-seminars

This entry provides an audio source for iTunes.

Abstract: When automated decision-making technologies (ADM) are procured and used by public authorities, important design and implementation decisions are often delegated to the professional developers they sub-contract to co-produce such technology. This can undermine accountability, democratic oversight, and the allocation of public functions determined by legislative bodies. On the other hand, in some circumstances officials might appropriately defer to the expertise of developers. This presentation considers how the concept of non-delegation in public law could be reassessed in this context to improve accountable official decision-making and the proper retention of decision-making authority where ADM is co-produced for public purposes.

Biography: Oliver Butler is an Assistant Professor at Nottingham University School of Law. He read law at the University of Cambridge and received a Distinction on the BCL at the University of Oxford, where he received the Faculty Prize in Constitutional Theory. He graduated from the LLM at Harvard Law School and was called to the Bar of England and Wales in 2013. He worked at the Law Commission of England and Wales as a research assistant on the Data Sharing between Public Bodies project before returning to Cambridge to undertake his PhD on the development of information law in the UK and Europe. He was Fellow at Wadham College, Oxford, jointly with a research fellowship at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights and has taught constitutional, administrative and human rights law on the BA and BCL and researched emerging digital rights.

For more information see:

https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-seminars

This entry provides an audio source for iTunes.

This session:

Session 4 – Reforming Data Protection – Enforcement Perspectives

• Chair: Dr Jennifer Cobbe, CIPIL
• Dr Orla Lynskey, London School of Economics
• Dr Johnny Ryan, Irish Council for Civil Liberties
• Dr Luca Tosoni, Norwegian Data Protection Authority
• Professor Gloria Gonzalez Fuster, Vrije Universiteit Brussel

For full information about this event, please see: https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-eventscipil-spring-conference/cipil-spring-conference-2024

This session:

Session 3 – Reforming Data Protection – Substantive Perspectives (Keynotes)

• Chair: Professor David Erdos, CIPIL
• Dr Winfried Veil, Data Protection Landscape
• Professor Bert-Jaap Koops, Tilburg University
• Professor Nadja Purtova, Utrecht University

For full information about this event, please see: https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-eventscipil-spring-conference/cipil-spring-conference-2024

This session:

Session 2 – UK Data Protection – The Changing Enforcement Landscape

• Chair: Jon Baines, Mishcon
• Professor David Erdos, CIPIL
• Claudia Berg, General Counsel, Information Commissioner's Office
• Jim Killock, Open Rights Group

For full information about this event, please see: https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-eventscipil-spring-conference/cipil-spring-conference-2024

This session:

Session 1 – UK Data Protection – The Changing Substantive Landscape

• Introduction to Conference: Professor David Erdos, CIPIL
• Chair: Dr Jennifer Cobbe, CIPIL (04:24)
• Dr Michael Veale, University College London (05:12)
• Gavin Freeguard, Policy Associate, Connected by Data (25:54)
• Vivienne Artz, Data Strategy & Privacy Policy Advisor to CIPL (43:27)

For full information about this event, please see: https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-eventscipil-spring-conference/cipil-spring-conference-2024

Abstract: It is a universal truism that the subject matter of modern intellectual property law is intangible information. Yet the field is haunted by a stubborn specter of physicalism. Time and again, courts and commentators engage in reasoning that relies on physicalist and quasi-physicalist assumptions or fails to absorb the implications of the intangible object of property. This happens in a wide variety of contexts, spanning from the patentability of DNA sequences to copyright infringement by training Generative Artificial Intelligence systems. The lecture explores persisting physicalism in intellectual property law, diagnoses its sources, and argues that we should go beyond it.

For more information see:

https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/

Abstract: As trade marks have evolved to perform an expressive function, courts and scholars on both sides of the Atlantic have devoted increased attention to elucidating when, and how, marks and speech interact. Three forms of interaction can be identified in European and US case law. First, in infringement litigation, a defendant can invoke speech with a view toward insulating from liability his unauthorized use of plaintiff’s mark for expressive purposes, usually for parody or commentary. Second, in trade mark registration, unsuccessful applicants can invoke speech to challenge the validity of a refusal of registration. And third, in constitutional challenges, a trade mark owner can invoke speech in seeking to strike down public measures encroaching on trade mark use.

Regrettably, to date, commentators have had a tendency to focus on one form of interaction at a time, placing special emphasis on infringement cases. Their analyses and proposals for reform have privileged this form of interaction in an effort to avoid the severe repercussions that unbridled enforcement of trade mark rights could have on defendants’ speech. This has led to an impoverished understanding of the interaction between marks and speech, broadly considered. In the absence of comprehensive studies covering the diversity of instances where both sets of rights interact, conventional wisdom posits that their interaction is unidirectional, in the sense that trade mark rights chill expression. My ongoing research seeks to redress this misconception by engaging in a taxonomic analysis of the diverse scenarios in which marks and speech interact. Their joint study reveals that this interaction is best understood as a two-way street, where freedom of expression can simultaneously limit and validate trade mark rights. The proposed reconceptualization of the interaction between marks and speech can contribute significantly to the advancement of the field.

Biography: Dr Alvaro Fernandez-Mora is a Lecturer in Intellectual Property Law at The Dickson Poon School of Law. Alvaro joined King's College London in 2024, having previously worked as a Lecturer in Law at the University of York (2021-2024). Alvaro has earned degrees from the University of Oxford (DPhil), Harvard Law School (LLM) and Universidad Pontificia Comillas de Madrid ICADE (LLB). Before pursuing his doctoral studies, Alvaro worked as an associate lawyer at Hogan Lovells LLP’s intellectual property litigation department in Madrid. Alvaro's research interests lie at the intersection between intellectual property law and other fields –notably human rights, competition law and economics–, often from a comparative perspective. Alvaro's work has been published in the Berkeley Journal of International Law (BJIL), the International Review of Intellectual Property and Competition Law (IIC) or the Intellectual Property Quarterly (IPQ).

For more information see:

https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-seminars

This entry provides an audio source for iTunes.

Abstract: Lessons from the decision of the IPEC in Shazam v Only Fools the Dining Experience, and cases referred to in that decision, addressing the findings that copyright can subsist in fictional characters (and the factors that the court relied upon in reaching that conclusion), and the defences of fair dealing for the purposes of parody and pastiche.

Biography: Thomas St Quintin is a barrister at Hogarth Chambers. He specialises in intellectual property, media and entertainment. He has been instructed in cases in the Court of Justice of the European Union and the General Court, and has appeared as the sole or lead advocate in each of the Supreme Court, Court of Appeal, High Court, Intellectual Property Enterprise Court, and in the UKIPO. His practice covers all areas of IP law, and is fairly evenly split between patents, trade marks, copyright, designs and confidential information cases (both technical and those involving privacy). He is a co-author of the Modern Law of Trade Marks, of Intellectual Property in Europe, and is a contributor to Copinger and Skone-James on Copyright.

For more information see:

https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-seminars

This entry provides an audio source for iTunes.

Abstract: The UK Supreme Court recently gave judgment in Thaler, upholding the refusal of patent applications listing DABUS, an AI, as the inventor. After looking at what the UKSC decided and why, I will consider three broader questions that arise from the litigation: (i) why did the case take the shape it did – in particular, was it driven by questions of procedure more than substance?; (ii) what does the judgment mean for patents arising from AI inventions in future?; and (iii) how do we approach the appropriate division of labour between the courts and Parliament in approaching these questions?

Biography: Stuart is Barrister at Three New Square Chambers. He was Legal 500 Junior of the Year in IP, IT and Media for 2018. In 2019 he was appointed to a three-year term as one of two Standing Counsel to HM Comptroller-General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks. He practises in all areas of intellectual property, including: patents, SPCs, trade marks, passing off, copyright, designs and confidential information.

For more information see:

https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-seminars

Biography: Professor Paul Wragg is Professor of Media Law at the University of Leeds. He has written extensively on privacy and press freedom. His monograph on the compatibility of compulsory press regulation with press freedom was published by Hart in May, 2020. He is co-editor (with Professor András Koltay) of a collection of papers examining comparative privacy and defamation laws, published by Edward Elgar in July 2020 and was previously editor-in-chief of Communications Law (2016-2019). He has been at Leeds since September 2009, having previously taught at Durham University and the University of Birmingham.

For more information see:

https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-seminars

Biography: Dr Alina Trapova is a Lecturer in IP Law at University College London (UCL) and a Co-Director of the Institute for Brand and Innovation Law (IBIL) at UCL Laws. Prior to that, she worked at the University of Nottingham as an Assistant Professor in Law and Autonomous Systems and Bocconi University as a Research Assistant and Coordinator of the LLM in European Business and Social Law. Alina's research interests focus on copyright law and the implications of machine learning and artificial intelligence on the creative industries. Alina also has a keen interest in EU law, particularly in examining the EU's law-making powers in the field of IP law. She is also a keen blogger and acts as a Co-Managing Editor of the well-known Kluwer Copyright Blog.

Abstract: AI-generated output has been a topic for discussion in the past years in academic, institutional and governmental circles. The topic involves a copyright challenge on both the input and output stage: (i) is an AI system engaging in copyright infringing activities when it processes information for the purposes of training; and (ii) are the outputs of these systems protected with copyright law as original works? While answers to these questions have remained difficult to find, a new type of AI systems have come to light – generative AI. These typically engage in the so-called prompt engineering activity whereby images and music are generated as a result of written text instructions. The copyright law puzzle becomes even more difficult to put together. This seminar will paint the picture of these issues by referring to EU, UK, and US copyright law due to ongoing litigation in these jurisdictions, as well as legislative and policy initiatives.

For more information see: https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-seminars

Biography: Eden Sarid is a lecturer at Essex Law School. His research and teaching interests include intellectual property, land law, law and technology, and cultural heritage law.

Abstract: This study offers a new way of thinking through the questions of what drives creativity and the role that IP plays in creative production, by empirically examining how the drag subculture governed creativity, entitlements, and information-exchange over time. First, in the 1990s when drag was a counterculture and from the mid-2010s onwards, after transforming into a lucrative mainstream industry.

For more information see: https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-seminars

Biography: Ida Madieha bt. Abdul Ghani Azmi obtained her LLB from IIUM, LLM from University of Cambridge and Ph.D from University of London (1995). Dr. Ida has authored and presented extensively on various issues on Intellectual Property and Cyberlaw. She is currently a Professor at the Ahmad Ibrahim Kulliyyah of Laws and the former Dean of Center for Postgraduate Studies, IIUM. She was the lead consultant for the Drafting of National Guidelines on Intellectual Property and Competition (2017-2018). She served as the Consultant to WIPO for the Drafting of IP Modules for MyIPO Malaysia (2017), the IP Policy for Kathmandu University (2016) and IP Curriculum and Syllabus in Bangladesh (2014). She has assisted WIPO on to design Database of Copyright law and Policy for ASEAN countries (2022) Model Curriculum on Copyright for Arts and Culture Schools in Developing Countries (UG and PG) (2022) and serve as a resource person for WIPO Training programmes. She currently serves as the consultant to the drafting of the Malaysian Cybersecurity Bill, which is awaiting to be tabled to the Parliament. Dr Ida served as a member of the Board of the Malaysian Intellectual Property Office (MyIPO) (2004-2008), (2018-2020). She was the former Deputy Director of the Malaysian Copyright Tribunal (2014-2016). She acts as a Domain Name Panelist with the Kuala Lumpur Arbitration Centre and Asian International Arbitration Centre. In the past, Dr Ida served as a resource person for the Intellectual Property Training Centre, ILKAB and the WTO Regional Trade Policy Program for Asia Pacific. She has served as the External Reviewer for the Multimedia University Law Faculty (2017-2018)(2019-2021) and Guest Editor, Pertanika Journal of Social Science and Humanities.

Abstract: Many countries, including Malaysia, are embarking on ambitious plans to take full advantage of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and emerging technologies in transforming their economy. Given that the deployment of AI necessitates a supportive and comprehensive legal framework, the legal status of AI as an artificial person comes into picture. Where an AI technology is considered as mere tool for human consumption, there is no issue as to whether they should be recognised as separate legal entities accountable to their own rights and responsibilities. Yet, this is where the storm is brewing. With the ability of AI platforms to match human abilities on certain activities, in addition to the astronomical resources being poured into the development of human-like sentient AI, there is a fresh call for the legal status of AI to be revisited. This talk begins with an examination of the ontological status of personhood in contemporary discourse. The talk then moves to explore the discussion on ‘personhood’ within Muslim scholar’s discourse. Core to the issue is in what context would rights and obligations arising from AI activities and transactions be recognised under the Shariah. As Shariah is the golden thread that binds most Muslim countries, the articulation of the Shariah perspective would be beneficial to these countries aiming to build their entire economy based on AI products and services.

For more information see: https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-seminars

Biography: Dr Luke McDonagh the LSE Law School in 2020. He undertakes research in the areas of Intellectual Property Law and Constitutional Law. Prior to taking up his position at LSE he was a Senior Lecturer at City, University of London (2015-2020), a Lecturer at Cardiff University (2013-2015) and LSE Fellow (2011-13). Luke holds a PhD from Queen Mary, University of London (2011), an LL.M from the London School of Economics (LSE) (2006-7) and a B.C.L. degree from NUI, Galway (2002-05). He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA).

For more information see: https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-seminars

In 1981, Professor Bill Cornish published the first student textbook on “Intellectual Property”. The book was to prove hugely influential, as academic courses on the subject proliferated around the country. In turn, it spawned a host of imitators, all of whom stuck doggedly with the template Cornish had provided (of treating patents, copyright and trade marks together). However, now in its 9th edition, and curated and updated by Professors David Llewelyn and Tanya Aplin, the text has never been surpassed.

One of the most significant aspects of the book was its very categorisation. Entitled “Intellectual Property: Patents, Copyright, Trade Marks and Allied Rights”, the textbook presented the distinct legal regimes as “allied” in important respects. Previously, practitioner texts had treated the fields of copyright, patent, trade marks and designs as deserving of separate treatment (in Copinger; Terrell; Kerly and Russell-Clarke; while, at the international level, the Paris and Berne Conventions had instilled a dichotomy between “industrial property”, on the one hand, and copyright and neighbouring rights on the other. Although it would be inaccurate to attribute the shift in thinking to the Cornish textbook (and certainly there were important precursors, not least establishment of WIPO in 1967), forty years on from the publication of Cornish’s seminal text, “intellectual property” has been cemented as a foundational legal concept. The term is deployed in international treaties (e.g. TRIPs, but as a chapter in the vast majority of free trade agreements), in regional instruments (Article 17 of the EU Charter, the EU’s Enforcement Directive), in national constitutions, in domestic legislation; the term is used to denominate governmental and non-governmental organisations, not least the World Intellectual Property Organisation, and the now numerous “intellectual property offices” around the world (including the UKIPO and EUIPO). In the UK, the notion of “intellectual property” serves to define the field of operation of distinct civil procedure rules, as well as the remedies available to litigators. Moreover, the concept figures in the names, and to define the operational fields of, professorial chairs (Bill was the Herchel Smith Professor of Intellectual Property between 1995 and 2004); institutes (such as CIPIL, which was conceived under Bill’s watch and founded to coincide with Bill’s retirement), journals (such as the E.I.P.R. and I.P.Q.) and scholarly organisations (such as A.T.R.I.P., to which Bill gave strong support during his career, including as president from 1985-7).

Of course, the concept of “intellectual property” has not gone uncriticised, and its usefulness unchallenged. Some institutes and journals have, of late, abandoned the term: the Max Planck Institute is now an institute for “innovation and competition law”, and UCL has an “Institute of Brands and Innovation Law.” The UK Intellectual Property Office has recently been located within the new Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. At this conference, we bring together scholars and practitioners, many of whom had a first hand relationship with Bill, to consider critically the origin, history, and utility of the notion of “intellectual property”, and more generally of thinking of trade marks, patents and copyright as “allied rights.” Reflecting Bill’s origins (in Australia), his cosmopolitanism (in particular his connection, as external academic member (from 1989) at the Max Planck Institute in Munich), and internationalism (as well as being President of A.T.R.I.P. from 1985-7 and Vice-President of A.L.A.I. from 1990), as well as the links he forged between university and practice (as a door tenant at 8 New Square), the conference will bring together a range of perspectives on the question of intellectual property as “allied rights.”

In 1981, Professor Bill Cornish published the first student textbook on “Intellectual Property”. The book was to prove hugely influential, as academic courses on the subject proliferated around the country. In turn, it spawned a host of imitators, all of whom stuck doggedly with the template Cornish had provided (of treating patents, copyright and trade marks together). However, now in its 9th edition, and curated and updated by Professors David Llewelyn and Tanya Aplin, the text has never been surpassed.

One of the most significant aspects of the book was its very categorisation. Entitled “Intellectual Property: Patents, Copyright, Trade Marks and Allied Rights”, the textbook presented the distinct legal regimes as “allied” in important respects. Previously, practitioner texts had treated the fields of copyright, patent, trade marks and designs as deserving of separate treatment (in Copinger; Terrell; Kerly and Russell-Clarke; while, at the international level, the Paris and Berne Conventions had instilled a dichotomy between “industrial property”, on the one hand, and copyright and neighbouring rights on the other. Although it would be inaccurate to attribute the shift in thinking to the Cornish textbook (and certainly there were important precursors, not least establishment of WIPO in 1967), forty years on from the publication of Cornish’s seminal text, “intellectual property” has been cemented as a foundational legal concept. The term is deployed in international treaties (e.g. TRIPs, but as a chapter in the vast majority of free trade agreements), in regional instruments (Article 17 of the EU Charter, the EU’s Enforcement Directive), in national constitutions, in domestic legislation; the term is used to denominate governmental and non-governmental organisations, not least the World Intellectual Property Organisation, and the now numerous “intellectual property offices” around the world (including the UKIPO and EUIPO). In the UK, the notion of “intellectual property” serves to define the field of operation of distinct civil procedure rules, as well as the remedies available to litigators. Moreover, the concept figures in the names, and to define the operational fields of, professorial chairs (Bill was the Herchel Smith Professor of Intellectual Property between 1995 and 2004); institutes (such as CIPIL, which was conceived under Bill’s watch and founded to coincide with Bill’s retirement), journals (such as the E.I.P.R. and I.P.Q.) and scholarly organisations (such as A.T.R.I.P., to which Bill gave strong support during his career, including as president from 1985-7).

Of course, the concept of “intellectual property” has not gone uncriticised, and its usefulness unchallenged. Some institutes and journals have, of late, abandoned the term: the Max Planck Institute is now an institute for “innovation and competition law”, and UCL has an “Institute of Brands and Innovation Law.” The UK Intellectual Property Office has recently been located within the new Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. At this conference, we bring together scholars and practitioners, many of whom had a first hand relationship with Bill, to consider critically the origin, history, and utility of the notion of “intellectual property”, and more generally of thinking of trade marks, patents and copyright as “allied rights.” Reflecting Bill’s origins (in Australia), his cosmopolitanism (in particular his connection, as external academic member (from 1989) at the Max Planck Institute in Munich), and internationalism (as well as being President of A.T.R.I.P. from 1985-7 and Vice-President of A.L.A.I. from 1990), as well as the links he forged between university and practice (as a door tenant at 8 New Square), the conference will bring together a range of perspectives on the question of intellectual property as “allied rights.”

In 1981, Professor Bill Cornish published the first student textbook on “Intellectual Property”. The book was to prove hugely influential, as academic courses on the subject proliferated around the country. In turn, it spawned a host of imitators, all of whom stuck doggedly with the template Cornish had provided (of treating patents, copyright and trade marks together). However, now in its 9th edition, and curated and updated by Professors David Llewelyn and Tanya Aplin, the text has never been surpassed.

One of the most significant aspects of the book was its very categorisation. Entitled “Intellectual Property: Patents, Copyright, Trade Marks and Allied Rights”, the textbook presented the distinct legal regimes as “allied” in important respects. Previously, practitioner texts had treated the fields of copyright, patent, trade marks and designs as deserving of separate treatment (in Copinger; Terrell; Kerly and Russell-Clarke; while, at the international level, the Paris and Berne Conventions had instilled a dichotomy between “industrial property”, on the one hand, and copyright and neighbouring rights on the other. Although it would be inaccurate to attribute the shift in thinking to the Cornish textbook (and certainly there were important precursors, not least establishment of WIPO in 1967), forty years on from the publication of Cornish’s seminal text, “intellectual property” has been cemented as a foundational legal concept. The term is deployed in international treaties (e.g. TRIPs, but as a chapter in the vast majority of free trade agreements), in regional instruments (Article 17 of the EU Charter, the EU’s Enforcement Directive), in national constitutions, in domestic legislation; the term is used to denominate governmental and non-governmental organisations, not least the World Intellectual Property Organisation, and the now numerous “intellectual property offices” around the world (including the UKIPO and EUIPO). In the UK, the notion of “intellectual property” serves to define the field of operation of distinct civil procedure rules, as well as the remedies available to litigators. Moreover, the concept figures in the names, and to define the operational fields of, professorial chairs (Bill was the Herchel Smith Professor of Intellectual Property between 1995 and 2004); institutes (such as CIPIL, which was conceived under Bill’s watch and founded to coincide with Bill’s retirement), journals (such as the E.I.P.R. and I.P.Q.) and scholarly organisations (such as A.T.R.I.P., to which Bill gave strong support during his career, including as president from 1985-7).

Of course, the concept of “intellectual property” has not gone uncriticised, and its usefulness unchallenged. Some institutes and journals have, of late, abandoned the term: the Max Planck Institute is now an institute for “innovation and competition law”, and UCL has an “Institute of Brands and Innovation Law.” The UK Intellectual Property Office has recently been located within the new Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. At this conference, we bring together scholars and practitioners, many of whom had a first hand relationship with Bill, to consider critically the origin, history, and utility of the notion of “intellectual property”, and more generally of thinking of trade marks, patents and copyright as “allied rights.” Reflecting Bill’s origins (in Australia), his cosmopolitanism (in particular his connection, as external academic member (from 1989) at the Max Planck Institute in Munich), and internationalism (as well as being President of A.T.R.I.P. from 1985-7 and Vice-President of A.L.A.I. from 1990), as well as the links he forged between university and practice (as a door tenant at 8 New Square), the conference will bring together a range of perspectives on the question of intellectual property as “allied rights.”

In 1981, Professor Bill Cornish published the first student textbook on “Intellectual Property”. The book was to prove hugely influential, as academic courses on the subject proliferated around the country. In turn, it spawned a host of imitators, all of whom stuck doggedly with the template Cornish had provided (of treating patents, copyright and trade marks together). However, now in its 9th edition, and curated and updated by Professors David Llewelyn and Tanya Aplin, the text has never been surpassed.

One of the most significant aspects of the book was its very categorisation. Entitled “Intellectual Property: Patents, Copyright, Trade Marks and Allied Rights”, the textbook presented the distinct legal regimes as “allied” in important respects. Previously, practitioner texts had treated the fields of copyright, patent, trade marks and designs as deserving of separate treatment (in Copinger; Terrell; Kerly and Russell-Clarke; while, at the international level, the Paris and Berne Conventions had instilled a dichotomy between “industrial property”, on the one hand, and copyright and neighbouring rights on the other. Although it would be inaccurate to attribute the shift in thinking to the Cornish textbook (and certainly there were important precursors, not least establishment of WIPO in 1967), forty years on from the publication of Cornish’s seminal text, “intellectual property” has been cemented as a foundational legal concept. The term is deployed in international treaties (e.g. TRIPs, but as a chapter in the vast majority of free trade agreements), in regional instruments (Article 17 of the EU Charter, the EU’s Enforcement Directive), in national constitutions, in domestic legislation; the term is used to denominate governmental and non-governmental organisations, not least the World Intellectual Property Organisation, and the now numerous “intellectual property offices” around the world (including the UKIPO and EUIPO). In the UK, the notion of “intellectual property” serves to define the field of operation of distinct civil procedure rules, as well as the remedies available to litigators. Moreover, the concept figures in the names, and to define the operational fields of, professorial chairs (Bill was the Herchel Smith Professor of Intellectual Property between 1995 and 2004); institutes (such as CIPIL, which was conceived under Bill’s watch and founded to coincide with Bill’s retirement), journals (such as the E.I.P.R. and I.P.Q.) and scholarly organisations (such as A.T.R.I.P., to which Bill gave strong support during his career, including as president from 1985-7).

Of course, the concept of “intellectual property” has not gone uncriticised, and its usefulness unchallenged. Some institutes and journals have, of late, abandoned the term: the Max Planck Institute is now an institute for “innovation and competition law”, and UCL has an “Institute of Brands and Innovation Law.” The UK Intellectual Property Office has recently been located within the new Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. At this conference, we bring together scholars and practitioners, many of whom had a first hand relationship with Bill, to consider critically the origin, history, and utility of the notion of “intellectual property”, and more generally of thinking of trade marks, patents and copyright as “allied rights.” Reflecting Bill’s origins (in Australia), his cosmopolitanism (in particular his connection, as external academic member (from 1989) at the Max Planck Institute in Munich), and internationalism (as well as being President of A.T.R.I.P. from 1985-7 and Vice-President of A.L.A.I. from 1990), as well as the links he forged between university and practice (as a door tenant at 8 New Square), the conference will bring together a range of perspectives on the question of intellectual property as “allied rights.”

Professor Jeanne Fromer specializes in intellectual property, including copyright, patent, trademark, trade secret, and design protection laws. She is a faculty co-director of the Engelberg Center on Innovation Law & Policy. Fromer is the co-author, with Chris Sprigman, of a free copyright textbook, Copyright Law: Cases and Materials, which is in use at over 65 law schools around the world. In 2011, she was awarded the American Law Institute’s inaugural Young Scholars Medal for her scholarship in intellectual property. Before coming to NYU, Fromer served as a law clerk to Justice David H. Souter of the US Supreme Court and to Judge Robert D. Sack of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. She also worked at Hale and Dorr (now WilmerHale) in the area of intellectual property. Fromer received her JD magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, serving as articles and commentaries editor of the Harvard Law Review and as editor of the Harvard Journal of Law and Technology. Fromer earned her BA summa cum laude in computer science from Barnard College, Columbia University. She received her SM in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for research work in artificial intelligence and computational linguistics and worked at AT&T (Bell) Laboratories in those same areas. Fromer was a visiting professor at Harvard Law School and Stanford Law School, and she also previously taught at Fordham Law School.

For more information see the CIPIL website at http://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk

Biography: Emmanuel Oke is a Senior Lecturer in International Intellectual Property Law at Edinburgh Law School. His research interests include international and comparative aspects of intellectual property law. Specifically, his research explores the interface between intellectual property and other branches of international law such as international trade law, international investment law, and international human rights law. He is equally interested in the relationship between intellectual property and development.

For more information see the CIPIL website at http://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk

Biography: Jade is currently a lecturer at Albertay University Law School.

Abstract: International intellectual property frameworks conceive of copyright exclusivity as a largely individualistic, westernised and capitalistic benefit which must be balanced against and limited by the non-commercial, competing public interest. This is expressed primarily by way of limitations to and exceptions from the norm of exclusivity recognised within these frameworks. This presentation argues for an alternative interpretation of copyright exclusivity as being justified by the public interest. However, unlike the works of Geiger et al., this interpretation is not premised upon the constitutional and quasi-constitutional patterns accounting for the public interest foundations of IP. Instead, it is premised upon the conceptualisations of indigenous communities within the Global South relating to exclusivity over intangible property for the communal benefit. This presentation argues that a paradigm shift in the international community at a supranational level is needed in order to better reflect the norms and values of the Global South. By reassessing the nature of copyright exclusivity rather than delegating conversations about non-commercial communal needs to limitations and exceptions, the Global South is no longer seen as mere passive receptors of Western norms and values, but as active participants with inherent value in the creation of a truly global IP framework.

For more information see: https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-seminars

Biography: Luminita qualified as a lawyer in Romania in 2011 and has been practicing for more than 8 years across a variety of legal areas including Intellectual Property Law, International Arbitration, European Law, and Commercial Law. She recently gained her PhD at UCL and currently teaches Intellectual Property Law at the LSE.

For more information see: https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-seminars

Biography: Haochen Sun is Associate Professor of Law at the University of Hong Kong. His recent scholarship has focused on the theoretical and policy foundations of intellectual property, Chinese intellectual property law, and technology law and the public interest. He has published numerous articles and co-edited books published by Cambridge University Press and Oxford University Press. His opinions about intellectual property and technology law have appeared in many media outlets such as Forbes, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, South China Morning Post, and The Wall Street Journal.

Abstract: In this seminar, Haochen Sun will discuss his groundbreaking work that analyzes the ethical crisis unfolding at the intersection of technology and the public interest. He examines technology companies' growing power and their increasing disregard for the public good. To tackle this asymmetry of power and responsibility, he argues that we must reexamine the nature and scope of the right to technology and dynamically protect it as a human right under international law, a collective right under domestic civil rights law, and potentially a fundamental right under domestic constitutional law. He also develops the concept of fundamental corporate responsibility requiring technology companies to compensate users for their contributions, assume an active role responsibility in upholding the public interest, and counter injustices caused by technological developments.

For more information see: https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-seminars

Abstract: Many countries have responded (or have considered responding) to the COVID pandemic by modifying their intellectual property laws to ensure the availability of vaccines, medicines, diagnostics, and related information. Some have asked the World Trade Organization (WTO) for a waiver to excuse any steps they might take that are inconsistent with obligations under the TRIPS Agreement. Although a waiver would protect WTO members from challenges in the WTO’s Dispute Settlement Body, a state that is a party to an international investment agreement (IIA) that includes investor-state dispute resolution has something else to worry about. Investors could claim that its actions amount to an indirect expropriation or a denial fair and equitable treatment in violation of the obligations in the IIA. In this piece, I conduct a thought experiment on how such suits might unfold. The first part describes how states sought or may seek to exercise control over the knowledge and products needed to protect public health during the global pandemic. The second part considers the challenges that investors might lodge and how they might be resolved. I identify the places where safeguards in IIAs that are intended to protect sovereign authority over healthcare may fall short.

For more information see: https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-seminars

Biography:

Dr Peter Coe has been a Lecturer in Law specialising in Media Law and Criminal Law at the University of Reading since September 2019. Prior to this, he was a practising barrister specialising in privacy, defamation and reputation management, having been Called to Bar by Lincoln's Inn in 2007 as a Lord Denning Scholar and Hardwicke Entrance Scholar. He has also held a Senior Lectureship in Law at Aston University, where he taught Media Law and Criminal Law. His primary research interests are: (i) citizen journalism's impact on free speech, media freedom and regulation, and the concepts of privacy and reputation; (ii) defamation, including the protection of corporate reputation; (iii) media power and plurality, the role the media plays within society and its impact on democracy. His work in these areas has been published in leading journals such as Legal Studies, the University of Melbourne's Media & Arts Law Review, the Journal of Business Law and Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly. Peter is also co-editor (with Professor Paul Wragg) of "Landmark Cases in Privacy Law" which will be published by Hart Publishing in 2022. In 2021, his research led him to be invited to join the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies and Information Law and Policy Centre as an Associate Research Fellow, having been a Research Associate at the ILPC since 2018. In 2020 he was also appointed as an Advisor to the University of East London's Online Harms and Cyber Crime Unit.

For more information see: https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-seminars