Registration and Breakfast

Welcome and Opening Remarks
Welcome Remarks: Conference Co-Chairs Molly Baxi Thakkar, Ericsson (Sweden), and Julian Waiblinger, NORDEMANN (Germany)

Opening Remarks: 2027 INTA President

Opening Keynote
A high-level representative of a key European institution sets out Europe’s agenda for AI and innovation, and the role intellectual property will play in European competitiveness, including through the proposed European Innovation Act.

Registrants will learn to:

• Understand Europe’s priorities for AI, innovation, and IP
• Anticipate how the Innovation Act may affect IP owners doing business in Europe

Policy Dialogue: The Innovation Act Unpacked — Can IP Become Europe’s Growth Asset?
The proposed European Innovation Act would amend the EU Trade Mark Regulation and give EUIPO a new role in IP valuation and IP finance. High-level representatives from several key institutions, joined by a brand owner, will share insights on what the Act means in practice: Who pays? Will fees rise? Who governs?

Registrants will learn to:

• Understand the Innovation Act’s main proposals and how they would change EU trade mark law
• Assess the implications for EUIPO fees, funding, and governance

New Frontiers for Brands in the Age of AI: Agentic Brands and AI-Generated Marks
AI is changing both what can function as a brand and how consumers encounter it. This session examines registrability and distinctiveness of sound, motion, multimedia, and AI-generated marks under EUIPO practice, ownership of adaptive brand assets, and trademark use when AI agents recommend and purchase products. Speakers will also address the transparency obligations that shape consumer trust.

Registrants will learn to:

• Build filing strategies for non-traditional and AI-generated marks
• Assess ownership of adaptive and AI-generated brand assets
• Evaluate infringement and unfair-competition issues in agent-mediated commerce
• Advise brands on transparency obligations affecting consumer trust

Moderator: Meriem Bourahla-Loudiyi, Director of Trademarks and Anti-Falsification Department, Servier (France)

Networking Break

AI-Enabled Brand Abuse: Bad-Faith Filings, Counterfeits, and Digital Enforcement
AI lets bad actors spot unregistered signs, file opportunistic trademark applications at scale, and generate counterfeit listings, cloned packaging, and fake marketplaces. This session examines bad-faith opposition and invalidity grounds under EU and national law, enforcement tools under the Digital Services Act and the EU Customs Enforcement Regulation, and how AI can support detection. Speakers will also cover how to preserve admissible digital evidence across borders.

Registrants will learn to:

• Recognize indicators of automated bad-faith filings and select efficient remedies
• Use DSA notice-and-action, trusted-flagger, and EU customs mechanisms effectively
• Preserve admissible digital evidence across borders

Moderator: Katia De Clercq, Head of Brand Protection, GEVERS (Belgium)

Networking Lunch

Capsule Keynote: AI-Assisted Inventions in Europe
This short keynote looks at how AI-assisted and AI-generated inventions are being examined and protected in Europe, and what inventors and their counsel should prepare for. It sets the stage for the discussion of authorship and ownership that follows.

Human Enough? Authorship and Ownership of AI-Generated Outputs
When does AI-assisted output remain protectable, and who is the author or designer when AI performs the decisive creative step? European courts are now drawing that line. The Court of Justice of the European Union’s (CJEU) Mio/Konektra ruling set a clearer originality test, and German courts have since refused protection for AI-generated logos and images. In those cases, prompting alone did not count as creative choice, and claimants were required to explain how their works were made. With the UK reviewing its protection for computer-generated works and the CJEU’s first generative-AI reference pending, this session sets out how much human input is enough under EU copyright and design law, how to prove it, and how to allocate ownership by contract.

Registrants will learn to:

• Evaluate whether AI-assisted works and designs meet EU originality and individual-character requirements
• Advise clients on documenting human creative contributions and meeting the burden of proof when AI use is alleged
• Draft employment, vendor, and platform terms allocating rights in AI-assisted outputs

Moderator: Yasemin Aktaş, Partner, Abion (Türkiye)

Recent AI Case Law Across Copyright, Design, and Trademark Law
This session provides a structured review of significant recent AI decisions from the Court of Justice of the European Union, the EU General Court, the EUIPO Boards of Appeal, and national courts across Europe, including the Hamburg and Munich courts in Germany and the High Court of England and Wales. It begins with copyright, in particular copyright authorship, training data, and output infringement, and continues with design protection and trademark use and bad-faith filings, building on the enforcement tools covered in the morning’s AI-Enabled Brand Abuse session. Rather than treating each right in isolation, speakers will identify common themes and tensions.

Registrants will learn to:

• Summarize key holdings on copyright authorship, training data, and output infringement, and in design and trademark law, shaping AI and IP practice
• Predict how courts may resolve open questions
• Adjust portfolio and enforcement strategy in light of emerging case law

Moderator: Sarah Wright, Partner and Co-Head of Intellectual Property, CMS (UK)

Networking Break

Inventive Enough? AI-Assisted Inventions and Europe’s Patent System

AI now designs molecules, optimizes products, and drafts patent claims. Europe has settled that an AI cannot be named as an inventor: the EPO, the UK Supreme Court, and courts in Germany and Switzerland all agree. The harder questions are still open. How much human contribution makes someone an inventor, and who is entitled to the patent? Does routine use of AI raise the bar for inventive step? How much of a model and its training must be disclosed? And after the UK Supreme Court’s 2026 Emotional Perception ruling aligned the UK with the EPO, how easy is it to patent AI itself? Panelists from the patent office, the bench, and industry will set out the European position and then test it against a scenario: a consumer-products company whose AI-designed product is about to launch. Registrants vote at each decision point.

Registrants will learn to:

• Apply European inventorship and entitlement rules, including the rules on employee inventions, to AI-assisted inventions
• Assess patentability, inventive step, and disclosure requirements for AI-related inventions at the EPO, in the UK, and before the UPC
• Decide when to protect AI models and data with patents and when with trade secrets, and document human inventive contribution

Networking Reception

Breakfast

The EU AI Act in a Fragmented World: Compliance and Private Enforcement
Companies that use AI in more than one market must comply with very different rules in the EU, the UK, the United States, and China, and breaching the EU AI Act can now lead to lawsuits, not just regulatory fines. This session compares these approaches and analyzes how AI Act duties could support civil claims, injunctions, unfair-competition actions, and claims under the revised Product Liability Directive.

Registrants will learn to:

• Map key areas of regulatory convergence and divergence affecting IP and data practices
• Assess how AI Act duties may influence standards of care and private remedies
• Design a coherent multi-jurisdictional AI governance and litigation-readiness program

Moderator: Peter Gustav Olson, Partner, Zacco (Denmark)

Trust Under Attack: Deepfakes, Digital Replicas, Leaks, and Model Distillation
AI can now convincingly replicate a person’s voice, face, and likeness, and imitate brand spokespeople, ambassadors, and assets. Labeling, watermarking, and content-provenance tools are emerging as responses. This session examines personality, image, and voice rights and unfair-competition remedies against unauthorized deepfakes and digital replicas across European jurisdictions, consent and licensing of digital likenesses, EU AI Act Article 50 transparency obligations, DSA platform duties, and GDPR implications, and assesses the legal reliability of technical safeguards. The session also covers the confidentiality side of trust: what “reasonable measures” now require under the EU Trade Secrets Directive when employees share unreleased brand information with AI tools, and the remedies available against leaks and unauthorized model distillation.

Registrants will learn to:

• Protect personality, voice, and likeness rights, and brand assets, against unauthorized deepfakes and digital replicas
• Structure consent and licensing terms for authorized digital replicas of talent, spokespeople, and brand ambassadors
• Advise on AI Act labeling duties and the evidential value of content credentials
• Protect AI know-how and confidential brand information as trade secrets, including against model distillation

Moderator: Zuzana Peniašková, Counsel, Noerr (Spain)

Networking Break

Copyright Reform in the EU: An Update in the Wake of AI Advancements
The European Commission is considering targeted changes to the EU copyright framework in response to generative AI. This session provides an update on the Commission’s targeted consultation of September 2026 and the policy options under discussion, including operationalizing rights reservations, transparency and disclosure mechanisms, a possible rebuttable presumption of use, collective licensing, and remuneration models. The panel will assess what these developments mean for the DSM Copyright Directive, in particular the Article 4 text-and-data-mining exception and machine-readable rights reservations, and how they relate to AI Act training-data transparency obligations and recent European training-data decisions. Panelists will weigh reform, judicial interpretation, and licensing solutions.

Registrants will learn to:

• Assess the Commission’s reform options and their likely impact on the DSM Directive
• Advise rights holders on effective opt-out reservations and on enforcement and licensing options
• Evaluate developers’ compliance with TDM and transparency rules
• Structure licensing arrangements that reduce litigation risk for both sides

Networking Lunch

The AI Practice Journey: Where the Market Is and How Firms and In-House Teams Are Adapting
AI tools for IP work now come from three directions: AI-native IP startups, legal AI platforms, and established IP service providers adding AI to their offerings. A short primer from an independent analyst sets out where the market stands and what law firms and in-house teams are actually adopting. A conversation follows with voices from each group, a law firm building its own tools, and an in-house buyer about their journeys: whether to build, buy, or partner; why some law firms are building their own tools; and how AI is reshaping work with clients. Speakers will share lessons learned, not product demonstrations.

Registrants will learn to:

• Map the main categories of AI tools for IP work and where each fits
• Decide when to build, buy, or partner, and what to ask providers
• Anticipate how AI is changing client expectations, pricing, and service delivery

Moderator: Laurence Morel-Chevillet, IP & Brand Protection Director, Bulgari (Italy)

Who Bears the Risk? AI Indemnities and IP Liability
AI providers increasingly offer IP indemnities, but their scope and value vary widely. This session reviews current market terms and analyzes exclusions, usage restrictions, claim notice and control, liability caps, warranties, and coverage for training data and outputs. It also considers the liability that remains for third-party rights holders’ claims once AI is deployed downstream.

Registrants will learn to:

• Assess the practical value of an AI provider’s indemnity
• Negotiate stronger risk-allocation terms for customers or providers
• Evaluate residual liability to third-party rights holders after downstream deployment

Networking Break

AI in IP Practice: People, Judgment, and the Future of the Profession
AI is reshaping trademark and IP work in law firms, in-house teams, and IP offices, and the biggest changes are about people. The session opens with a short look at what neuroscience tells us about working alongside AI: cognitive overload, constant switching between human and machine tasks, and “automation anxiety.” Speakers will then examine how teams are changing, from new hires such as legal engineers, data specialists, and legal product managers to evolving roles for trademark administrators and paralegals, and how to train junior practitioners when AI takes on entry-level work. The session closes with the professional duties that do not change: competence, confidentiality, supervision, candor to tribunals, and fair billing, drawing on guidance from legal associations, courts, and IP offices and on lessons from cases involving AI-fabricated citations. Throughout, speakers will explain why human judgment remains the foundation of trusted IP advice.

Registrants will learn to:

• Recognize how working with AI affects attention, decision-making, and well-being, and support teams through the change
• Plan for new roles, hires, and the development of junior practitioners as AI takes on entry-level work
• Apply core professional duties to generative AI tools across jurisdictions
• Build firm and in-house AI-use policies covering confidentiality, client consent, oversight, and billing

Closing Keynote: Brussels 2030: Utopia, Dystopia, or Something Better?
Where will Europe stand in 2030? This keynote looks ahead to emerging AI capabilities, including autonomous agents, physical AI, and advanced general-purpose systems, and asks what they will mean for Europe’s competitiveness, for IP protection and liability, and for the rules that govern them. The speaker will separate near-term developments counsel should prepare for now from longer-term possibilities, and set out what it would take for Europe to land on the right side of the line between utopia and dystopia.

Registrants will learn to:

• Anticipate legal issues arising from autonomous and physical AI
• Assess how Europe’s IP and regulatory frameworks may need to adapt
• Advise on future-proofing IP and governance strategies

Closing Remarks and Conference Adjourns