THE COMPASS ROSE ON IP AND IT LAW: NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN EUROPE

This book is part of the Innovative Teaching Project that was granted to the LLM in IP and IT Law by Universidad Autónoma de Madrid in the academic year 2018/2019[1]. The aim of that project was to promote the research on Intellectual Property Law among postgraduate students of Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. It is a fast-moving area that combines important issues of Civil Law and Commercial Law, as well as some other neighbouring areas, such as data protection and new technologies. Students of the XIII edition of the LLM have been supervised by the scholars that are part of this project –Pilar Cámara Águila, Sebastián López Maza and Gemma Minero Alejandre-.

Apart from the contributions to the blog, students have prepared different texts as part of the speeches that they gave as speakers of the Third International Congress on IP that was organised by the LLM in IP and IT Law of Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and the Master 2 Droit des Activités Numériques of Université Paris V - Descartes. The congress was titled “The Compass Rose on IP and IT Law” and it took place on 5th April 2019 at the School of Law of Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Five of our students that were also speakers in the congress managed to enrich and improve their texts in order to write the chapters of this book. Besides, three students of the Master 2 Droit des Activités Numériques of Université Paris V - Descartes prepared chapters with the topics that they discussed in that congress. Moreover, a student of the XI edition of the LLM in IP and IT Law of Universidad Autónoma de Madrid also wrote a chapter for this book, which is related to the topic that he discussed in the first international IP congress that was co-organized by Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and Université Paris V - Descartes in 2017.

The international environment that this annual congress involves is a privilege, both for students and scholars. Students choose the topics, prepare their presentations and discuss them in front of their colleagues, so they have to apply not only national Law, but also –and mainly- European and International Law. The experience was even more productive with the debate that was generated after each panel. We find their perspectives to be highly enriching for all the participants.

In terms of topics, the contributions cover some interesting issues of copyright, trademarks, patents, emerging technologies, social media and data protection, all of them being studied from an original or novel point of view. Our students in this sense represent the diversity of the ongoing research in the area of Intellectual Property Law.

Taking all of that together, we hope that this book manages to pass our wonderful international experience and collaboration on to its readers.