Guest Lecture Sheds Light on Intersections Between Intellectual Property and AI

13.09.2024

Legal Expert Pauline Verheijen-Dop Delivers Insightful Session to Bachelor’s Students

In the world of business, understanding how contracts work and the updates technology brings to this field is essential for professionals. To provide bachelor’s students with valuable insights into this subject, Wittenborg recently held the session ‘Contracts, IP and AI: Navigating the Future’. The guest lecture was delivered by entrepreneurial senior legal counsel Pauline Verheijen-Dop, also a member of the school’s advisory board.

The activity covered basic notions of topics such as the various forms of intellectual property (IP), contract drafting and the challenges that Artificial Intelligence (AI) poses in this regard. Verheijen-Dop started by explaining the characteristics and differences between trademarks, copyrights, patents and trade secrets. Next, she focused on how intellectual property legislation applies to AI-generated content and whether IP contracts that comply with all legal requirements can be generated by Artificial Intelligence tools. The guest lecturer emphasised that contracts are a necessity, and while AI offers great tools, it still needs human controls.

Verheijen-Dop said that she loves teaching at Wittenborg because the varied backgrounds of its students lead to interesting and insightful discussions. “We had an interesting discussion about whether or not a contract should be fair to all parties. Sometimes there is an imbalance between parties and you have no choice but to accept this,” the guest lecturer highlighted.

She added that Wittenborg holds a special place in her heart because her late father, Jan-Albert Dop, spent many years collaborating with the school and even taught a few classes himself. Dop’s involvement with Wittenborg began in 2009, and between 2019 and 2021 he was the institution’s Vice-President of Corporate Affairs.

“He loved the time he spent at Wittenborg and the interactions with the students, and of course Maggie and Peter. Sadly, he passed away three years ago but he worked for Wittenborg literally until the very last day, which was exactly as he would have wanted it to be. I am deeply honoured to be able to follow in his footsteps, fully knowing that his were very big shoes to fill. I really think it would have made him quite proud.”