Moderator: Kasper Drazewski: Associate Director of the Programme in Intellectual Property & Information Technology Law at KU Leuven. His research focuses on software innovation and consumer-empowering artificial intelligence. In 2019 he defended a Ph.D. thesis on copyright aspects of technological innovation.

Prof. Thomas Margoni: Research Professor of Intellectual Property Law at the Faculty of Law and Criminology, KU Leuven, where he is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Centre for IT & IP Law (CiTiP) and the director of the IP & IT Law programme. His research concentrates on the relationship between law and technology, with a focus on comparative and European copyright law. Currently, he is exploring the transformations occurring in the creation, access, and distribution of information brought by technologies and connected cultural processes, including AI, platforms and datafication. Examples of relevant research projects include the Data Spaces Support Centre (DSSC) a Digital Europe funded project dedicated to explore current data space initiatives, define common requirements and establish best practices, where Thomas is KUL's PI for the legal contribution; Skills4EOSC the Horizon Europe project aimed to accelerate the upskilling of European researchers and data professionals in the field of Open Science; DAFNE+ the Horizon Europe project dedicated to the use of blockchain technologies to define novel revenue and business models for the cultural and creative industries; ZOOOM the Horizon Europe project focusing on awareness raising in the field of IP generation and management in collaborative innovation ecosystems, and XRECO a new data-driven ecosystem for the media industry, focusing on facilitating data sharing, search and discovery (for a full list see link below). Other areas of interest where Thomas has developed institutional as well as funded research include the processes of EU copyright and design law harmonisation; Data ownership and data governance models; Copyright, generative AI and governance infrastructures; Copyright, design rights and additive manufacturing; The digitisation of cultural heritage and the digital public domain; Open access and open science; Online intermediaries, fundamental rights and the platform economy; and the role of property rights in sports.

Prof. Alain Strowel: Professor at the UCLouvain where he teaches intellectual property, IT and media law. He also gives courses in two advanced masters in intellectual property and IT law at the Munich IP Law Center and the University of Alicante (Magister Lucentinus). In 2020-2021, he was a fellow at the Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society (Berlin).  In 2023-2024, he was visiting professor at Macquarie University (Sydney). He is also an attorney at the Brussels bar since 1988 and arbiter for the WIPO domain names dispute resolution system. He has been appointed as a trustee of the European Law Academy (ERA, Trier, 2012-2019) and was elected to the Academia Europaea in 2012. Since 2019, he has chaired the Intellectual Property working group of All European Academies (ALLEA) to which he contributed since 2012. Alain graduated in law, economics and philosophy at the UCLouvain and the University of Amsterdam. He holds a PhD in Law from UCLouvain. Today his research focuses on data and Artificial Intelligence governance, as well as the regulation of online platforms.

Topic: Panel discussion on the best practices in applying Belgian and European copyright law for research purposes, including Belgian secondary publication rights, licenses and exceptions, including text and data mining.

• Marie-Christine Janssens: Chair of the KU Leuven’s Commission of Research Integrity and President of the Belgian Council for Intellectual Property Rights, Section Copyright and Neighbouring Rights, an advisory body composed of experts and representatives from the sectors concerned with intellectual property, with the main task of advising the minister responsible for intellectual property on matters within this domain. In addition, she serves as Vice-President of the Belgian Section of ALAI (Belgische Vereniging voor de Bescherming van het Auteursrecht  – BVA) and is a member of the Executive Committee of the International Copyright Society ALAI. Her research has consistently covered a broad range of intellectual property topics, with a particular focus on European and comparative dimensions. Major themes of her work include European trademark law, the harmonisation of copyright norms in the EU, moral rights, exceptions to copyright, software protection, text and data mining, orphan works, open access and open data, public sector information, employee inventions and university inventions, as well as the legal challenges raised by artificial intelligence and blockchain for intellectual property rights.
   
• Frederic Lemmers: Head of Digitization Services and member of the direction at the Royal Library of Belgium. Since 2011, he has led many digitization projects on both Belgian and international levels. He represents its institution in several international associations (CERL, EROMM, RFN) and is lecturer at ULB where he teaches management in the cultural heritage sector.
   
• Julien Cabay: Professor at Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) where he holds the Chair in Intellectual Creation and Innovation Law and is Director of JurisLab, a research unit of the Center for private law located in the FabLab ULB. He is also Associate Professor at Université de Liège (ULiège), where he teaches in the LL.M. in IP & Competition Law organized by the EU Legal Studies Institute. Next to his main affiliations, he is Invited Professor (Gastdocent) at KULeuven (Master of IP & ICT Law), Invited Professor at Centre d’études internationales de la propriété intellectuelle (CEIPI) of University of Strasbourg (University Diploma in AI & IP), Lecturer at Brussels School of Artificial Intelligence (Executive Master in Law & AI), Affiliated Researcher at Digital Law Center (DLC) of University of Geneva and member of the Belgian Council for Intellectual Property. In the past, he has been Research Fellow (2010-2014) and PostDoc Researcher at National Fund for Scientific Research (2016-2020), Visiting Research Fellow at Columbia University in the City of New York (2012-2013) and Global Policy Fellow at Instituto de Tecnologia e Sociedade do Rio de Janeiro (2018). His main fields of expertise are Copyright Law; AI & IP; Fundamental Rights & IP; IP & Open Science.

• Case Study 1: The “Clone” Wars
  Topic: idea vs. expression in software, interoperability, reproducibility
  Moderator: Julien Cabay (bio above)

• Case Study 2: The "Port House"
  Topic: Download and reuse of copyrighted content
  Moderator: Sari Depreeuw:  Belgian lawyer heading the IP/IT team at Brussels-based law firm Crowell. In addition, she also teaches intellectual property law and media law at Université UCLouvain and she is affiliated to the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (research group LSTS). She is an active member of the Belgian copyright community and has conducted studies for the European Commission and the Belgian government on the subject of copyright. She is also president of the Belgian Copyright Association and a member of the editorial board of Computerrecht, a peer-reviewed, Dutch-Belgian IT journal.