IP/IT/Data

The IP/IT practice at d&a partners advises companies, executives, creators, platforms, cultural and creative industry players and technology businesses on the design, deployment, protection and legal structuring of their digital projects.

The firm has developed particular expertise in technologies whose technical characteristics challenge traditional legal categories, notably in the fields of artificial intelligence, intellectual property, blockchain and decentralised architectures, cybersecurity and data protection.

Our approach is based on a close understanding of the relevant technologies and their practical uses. This enables the firm to advise clients from the earliest stages of a project and to address technical architecture, intellectual property, contracts, data governance and regulatory requirements as part of a coherent legal framework, rather than treating these issues separately once the technology has already been deployed.

d&a partners therefore assists clients both with the structuring of innovative projects and with regulatory compliance, the negotiation of strategic technology agreements, the protection and commercial exploitation of intangible assets, and the management of related disputes and crisis situations.

Artificial Intelligence & Intellectual Property

d&a partners advises on the intellectual property issues arising from the development and use of generative artificial intelligence systems.

The firm assists AI solution providers, corporate users, rights holders, creators and businesses operating in the cultural and creative industries on issues relating to training data, AI-generated and AI-assisted content, and the conditions under which such content may be used and exploited.

The team advises in particular on:

• the use of copyright works, databases and other protected content for the training of artificial intelligence models;
• text and data mining, access to protected content and the exercise or recognition of rights reservations and opt-outs;
• the legal qualification and protection of works created with the assistance of artificial intelligence tools;
• the identification of human contributions capable of attracting copyright protection;
• ownership of rights and the securing of chains of title for content incorporating AI-generated or AI-transformed elements;
• the drafting and negotiation of licence, production, commissioning, assignment and exploitation agreements involving artificial intelligence;
• trademark, image and personality rights, unfair competition and passing-off issues arising from synthetic or AI-generated content;
• internal policies governing employees’ use of generative AI tools;
• protection and enforcement strategies concerning works, characters, trademarks and other intangible assets exploited through digital platforms.

This expertise enables the firm to advise on projects at the intersection of creativity, technology and intellectual property, particularly where identifying the author, the protected work, the data used or the respective contribution of humans and artificial intelligence requires a detailed legal and technical analysis.

Artificial Intelligence: Compliance, Governance & Ethics

Beyond intellectual property matters, d&a partners assists clients with the compliance and governance of their artificial intelligence systems and uses.

The firm’s approach begins with the functions actually performed by the system, the models being used, the relevant data flows and the allocation of responsibilities between the various participants in the technology chain, in order to determine the applicable legal requirements.

The firm advises in particular on:

• mapping artificial intelligence systems and functionalities used or marketed by an organisation;
• determining the respective roles of the various actors and identifying the applicable regulatory regimes;
• classification of AI systems under the European Union Artificial Intelligence Act;
• compliance audits and gap analyses;
• the design and implementation of AI governance frameworks;
• internal AI policies and acceptable-use guidelines;
• technical and regulatory documentation, control procedures and human oversight mechanisms;
• transparency obligations applicable to generative AI systems and AI-generated content;
• the interaction between the AI Act, the GDPR, intellectual property law, consumer law, platform regulation and sector-specific requirements;
• impact assessments, in particular where AI systems may affect fundamental rights or involve the processing of personal data;
• the development of responsible and ethical AI principles tailored to the organisation’s activities and specific risk profile.

The team advises both companies developing their own artificial intelligence systems and organisations integrating models or services supplied by third-party providers.

The objective is to translate regulatory requirements into an operational compliance architecture that remains compatible with the technical, economic and organisational constraints of the underlying project.

Blockchain: Complex Architectures, Contractual Engineering & Decentralised Projects

d&a partners has longstanding experience with blockchain technologies and has advised on their development from the first generations of crypto projects through to increasingly complex decentralised architectures.

Alongside the firm’s Corporate and Regulatory practices, the IP/IT team focuses more specifically on the technological, contractual and intellectual property dimensions of blockchain projects.

The firm assists clients in designing the legal architecture of protocols and services relying on public or private blockchains, smart contracts and decentralised organisations.

The team advises in particular on:

• the legal and contractual analysis of complex blockchain architectures;
• the allocation of roles and liabilities between developers, interface operators, protocols, validators, users and other participants;
• the interaction between technical architecture and legal governance;
• development, integration, audit and operation agreements relating to blockchain solutions;
• intellectual property issues concerning protocols, software, interfaces and smart contracts;
• open-source licensing and its interaction with proprietary developments;
• terms of use and contractual frameworks applicable to decentralised services;
• legal issues arising from DAOs and other distributed governance systems;
• the drafting of agreements designed to give legal effect to mechanisms performed wholly or partly on-chain;
• the interaction between smart contracts, traditional legal agreements and governance mechanisms;
• tokenisation projects requiring the legal rights represented by a token to be accurately aligned with their technical implementation.

This approach allows the firm to advise on projects where applying regulation to a product is not sufficient: it is necessary to understand the underlying technical and economic architecture in order to design the corresponding legal and contractual framework.

Cybersecurity, Data Protection & Data Governance

d&a partners advises clients on the full range of issues relating to data protection, data governance and cybersecurity.

The team advises both upstream, during the design of digital services and the negotiation of technology agreements, and downstream, in connection with security incidents, regulatory investigations or projects involving particularly sensitive or complex data processing operations.

The firm advises in particular on:

• compliance with the GDPR and other European data protection rules;
• determining the respective roles of controllers, joint controllers and processors;
• the design and review of data governance and data protection policies;
• data protection impact assessments (DPIAs);
• international data transfers and the contractual structuring of data flows;
• the negotiation of Data Processing Agreements and security provisions;
• the legal governance of databases and datasets, including those used for artificial intelligence;
• compliance audits of platforms, software products and digital services;
• the preparation for and management of personal data breaches and cybersecurity incidents;
• notification obligations and dealings with the relevant regulatory authorities;
• the integration of cybersecurity requirements into IT agreements and technology projects;
• the interaction between cybersecurity, data protection and digital technology regulation.

The firm’s practice is particularly well suited to matters requiring the combined analysis of cybersecurity, data protection and artificial intelligence, which are increasingly interconnected within complex technology projects.

Expertise Driven by Regulation, Research and Technical Standardisation

Digital technologies often evolve faster than the legal frameworks governing them. Advising effectively in this area therefore requires an understanding not only of existing law, but also of technological developments, emerging uses and technical standards that may shape tomorrow’s market practices.

To provide its clients with relevant and continuously updated expertise, d&a partners conducts in-depth monitoring of developments in technology, digital practices and digital regulation.

The firm’s lawyers also contribute to work carried out at national, European and international levels, relating not only to the development of regulation but also to technical standardisation, ethics and compliance best practices.

This involvement enables the firm to anticipate developments in the legal frameworks governing artificial intelligence, blockchain, data and cybersecurity, while also identifying the increasing interaction between legal rules, technical standards and governance mechanisms.

Above all, it enables d&a partners to advise clients on emerging technologies where the legal solution cannot always be found simply by applying an existing rule, but must instead be developed through a combined understanding of law, technology and real-world use cases.