Professor Dev Gangjee delivers Lionel A Sheridan Professorial Lecture

Professor Dev Gangjee delivered the Lionel A Sheridan Professorial Lecture, titled “A Quotidian Revolution: Artificial Intelligence and Trade Mark Law”, at the NUS Bukit Timah Campus on 23 August 2022, in front of a live audience of about five dozen people.

According to Professor Gangjee, artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms, in a subtle yet impactful way, have made considerable inroads into the everyday practice of trade mark law. The appeal of this technology lies in its ability to keep pace with the ever-growing corpus of registered trade marks globally. Machine learning technologies are used to assist applicants with registration requirements, support examiners who classify signs, and help established right-holders (or new applicants) identify conflicts when new marks are applied for. AI is also entering the domain of enforcement, where it is used to identify unauthorised uses of marks online, including on social media platforms.

In this lecture, Professor Gangjee shared his views on whether AI algorithms are helpful in streamlining decision making and policing infringement, and the doctrinal implications for trade mark law registration and infringement.

In the Q&A session that followed, moderated by Professor David Tan (Co-Director, Centre for Technology, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence & the Law), the audience participated in a lively discussion of some of present limitations of AI, such as in the areas of parody and trademark dilution by blurring.

Lionel A. Sheridan Visiting Professor Dev Gangjee

Almost a full house at the Wee Chong Jin Moot Court

Post-lecture discussion session moderated by Professor David Tan

Audience participation during the Question & Answer session

Mr Lam Chung Nian (WongPartnership) having an animated chat

(L to R): Professor Wayne Courtney, Professor Dev Gangjee, Professor David Tan

About Professor Dev Gangjee

Professor Dev Gangjee is the Lionel A. Sheridan Visiting Professor of Intellectual Property Law at NUS Law and a Tutorial Fellow at St Hilda’s College. Prior to joining Oxford, he was a senior lecturer at the London School of Economics.

Professor Gangjee is a graduate of the National Law School of India and Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. His research focuses on Intellectual Property (IP), with a special emphasis on Branding and Trade Marks, Geographical Indications and Copyright Law. Thematic research interests include the history and political economy of IP, collective and open innovation, the significance of registration for intangibles and rights in data. He has acted in an advisory capacity for national governments, law firms, international organisations and the European Commission on IP issues.

Besides IP, Professor Gangjee has teaching interests across private law, including contract, land and tort law. He has won teaching prizes (LSE) and a student welfare award (Oxford). He is a visiting professor at the Munich Intellectual Property Law Centre, having taught on their LLM programme since 2010. He has held visiting fellowships at the Institute of Intellectual Property in Tokyo (2005), the IP Research Institute of Australia at UNSW (2010) and Hong Kong University (2018). Dev is presently Director of the Oxford IP Research Centre (OIPRC), and he is also on the Advisory Panel of NUS Law’s Centre for Technology, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence & the Law. He serves on the Editorial Boards of the Modern Law Review, Queen Mary Journal of Intellectual Property and the open access journal Laws.