Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law (CIPIL) Podcast

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 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

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 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

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, 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

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 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

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 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 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 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

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 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

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 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

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 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