Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law (CIPIL) Podcast

Speaker: Dr Julia Möller-Klapperich, Freie Universität Berlin

Abstract: Art is, first and foremost, something deeply personal, yet at the same time a form of communication that is relevant to society. Copyright law therefore balances between the interests of the artist and those of society. If something has relevance within a market economy, it can in general be monetised. Whilst innovation is increasingly understood politically as the ability to capitalise a personal or societal need, the democratising effect that characterises art as a human phenomenon and as a space for societal resonance is visibly eroding, giving wa...

Chair: Professor Markus Gehring, CELS

This seminar and book discussion will focus on how artificial intelligence is rapidly expanding the supply of legal reasoning, but how it does not by itself produce justice. Superjustice asks what legal systems should look like when constraints of scarcity, delay, and inconsistency can increasingly be relaxed by computation. Rather than simply digitising existing institutions, Benjamin Alarie and Samuel Becher argue in their new OUP book with the same title for redesigning law as a more accessible, responsive, and adaptive framework for human flourishing. The talk and discussion will explore how AI...

Speaker: Lisa P. Ramsey, Professor of Law, University of San Diego School of Law

Professor Lisa P. Ramsey, Professor of Law at the University of San Diego School of Law and an expert on trademark law, will be speaking on her new book, Trademarks and Free Speech: Conflicts and Resolutions (CUP: 2026). This book explores how trademark laws can conflict with the right to freedom of expression and proposes a framework for evaluating free speech challenges to trademark registration and enforcement laws. It also explains why granting trademark rights in informational terms, political messages, widely used phrases, decorative...

Speaker: Professor Leah Grinwald (Dean and Richard J. Morgan Professor of Law, University of Nevada)

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 stif...

Speaker: Trevor Cook (Bird and Bird)

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 creati...

Speaker: Phil Barnes (BarnesIP)

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 r...

Speaker: Dr Katarina Foss-Solbrekk (University of Copenhagen)

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...

Speaker: Trevor Cook (Bird and Bird)

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...

Speaker: Dr Quentin Schaefer (11 South Square)

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...

The nineteenth Annual International Intellectual Property Lecture was delivered by Professor Ruth Okediji, Jeremiah Smith. Jr, Professor of Law; Faculty Co-Director, Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, Harvard University on Tuesday 17 March 2026.

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/

Speaker: Associate Professor David A. Simon, Northeastern University School of Law

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 St...

Speaker: Dr Christopher Stothers, Partner at Freshfields in London and Dublin

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 Pr...

Speaker: Dr Svitlana Lebedenko, Assistant Professor at the University of Warwick and part-time Assistant Professor at the European University Institute.

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...

Speaker: Dr Poorna Mysoor, CIPIL, University of Cambridge

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...

Speaker: Professor Jon Penney (Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, Toronto)

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...

Speaker: Tim Pitt-Payne KC, 11 Kings Bench Walk

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...

Speaker: Professor Lilian Edwards, Emeritus Professor of Law, Innovation & Society, Newcastle Law School 

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...

Speaker: Professor Bhamati Viswanathan, Visitor, Cambridge Law Faculty and Fellow at the Kernochan Center for Law, Media and the Arts at Columbia Law School

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...

Speaker: Dr Yin Harn Lee, Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Bristol

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 h...

Speaker: Professor Andrew Christie, University of Melbourne

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 Univ...

Speaker: Professor Niva Elkin Koren (Tel Aviv University)

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 wel...

Speaker: Mr Dennis Collopy (University of Hertfordshire)

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...

Speaker: Professor Tanya Aplin (King’s College London)

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 mi...

Speaker: Professor Sean Flynn (Washington College of Law)

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...

Speaker: Professor Mireille van Eechoud (University of Amsterdam)

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 m...

Speaker: Mr David Stone (White & Case LLP)

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...

Speaker: Professor Dev Gangjee (University of Oxford)

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...

Speaker: Professor Ryan Abbott (University of Surrey)

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 m...

Speaker: Dr Alina Trapova (UCL)

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...

Speaker: Professor Mateo Aboy (University of Cambridge)

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...

Speaker: Dr Jennifer Cobbe (University of Cambridge)

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...

The eighteenth Annual International Intellectual Property Lecture was delivered by Robert P. Merges, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati Professor of Law and Technology at UC Berkeley School of Law, on 18 March 2025.

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/

Speaker: Professor Madhavi Sunder, Georgetown University Law School

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 st...

Speaker: Professor Margo Bagley, Emory University School of Law 

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...

Speaker: Dr Stuart Baran is a barrister at specialist intellectual property chambers Three New Square IP

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 trad...

Speaker: Dr Henry Pearce, Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Portsmouth and Deputy Editor for Computer Law & Security Review

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 da...

Speaker: Dr Kalpana Tyagi, Assistant Professor, Maastricht University

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...

Speaker: Professor Ruth Okediji, Jeremiah Smith Jr., Professor of Law, Harvard Law School and Co-Director of the Berkman Klein Center

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 an...

Speaker: Dr Oliver Butler, University of Nottingham

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...

On Friday 22nd March 2024, the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law (CIPIL) held its Annual Spring Conference entitled 'Data Protection Reform'.

This session:

Session 4 – Reforming Data Protection – Enforcement Perspectives

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