Mauritz Kop Speaks at CNAS Quantum Roundtable on Research Security, Technology Theft, and Intellectual Property Rights

Washington, D.C. – On October 11, 2023, the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) convened a timely, off-the-record roundtable discussion to address one of the most pressing national security challenges of our time: safeguarding American leadership in quantum technology. The event, titled "Quantum Roundtable: Research Security, Technology Theft, and Intellectual Property Rights," brought together a select group of leading experts from government, industry, and academia. Among the distinguished speakers was Mauritz Kop, Fellow and Visiting Scholar in Quantum and Law at Stanford University and later the Founding Director of the Stanford Center for Responsible Quantum Technology (RQT), and Chair of the annual Stanford RQT Conference.

The roundtable served as a critical forum for in-depth dialogue on formulating a robust U.S. strategy to protect its quantum ecosystem from intellectual property theft and illicit technology transfer, particularly in the context of strategic competition with nations like China. Quantum technology governance global expert Mauritz Kop was invited to provide his unique perspective, rooted in a holistic framework for responsible innovation, to help navigate the complex interface of intellectual property and national security.

The Center for a New American Security: Shaping the National Security Debate

The Center for a New American Security is a prominent, bipartisan non-profit organization that develops strong, pragmatic, and principled national security and defense policies. CNAS engages policymakers, experts, and the public with innovative, fact-based research, ideas, and analysis to shape and elevate the national security debate. Its Technology and National Security Program, led by Senior Fellow and Director Vivek Chilukuri, focuses on the complex challenges and opportunities presented by emerging technologies, aiming to ensure the United States maintains its technological leadership while upholding democratic values. This roundtable was a key component of the program's project on U.S. quantum strategy and its intersection with U.S.-China economic relations, reflecting CNAS’s commitment to proactive and forward-thinking policy development.

A High-Stakes Convening of Quantum Leaders

The roundtable's agenda was designed to facilitate a candid and substantive discussion among key stakeholders. The session was opened by CNAS Executive Vice President and Director of Studies, Dr. Paul Scharre, and Program Director Vivek Chilukuri, who set the stage by outlining the critical importance of the topic.

The main discussion featured two expert speakers:

Mauritz Kop, who brought a comprehensive legal, ethical, and policy perspective from his work at Stanford. His research focuses on developing governance frameworks for emerging technologies, integrating intellectual property, antitrust law, distributive justice, and national security strategy.

Dr. Elliott Mason, a Registered Patent Agent at Young Basile and a leader within the Quantum Economic Development Consortium (QED-C). Dr. Mason provided deep technical and practical insights from the front lines of quantum patenting and the development of industry standards.

Conclusion: A Principled Approach to Quantum Technology Governance

Mauritz Kop concluded his remarks by emphasizing the profound dilemmas and trade-offs inherent in governing quantum technology. The pendulum swings between open and closed innovation, and between mitigating risks and maximizing benefits, require a sophisticated, evidence-based, and adaptive approach.

His participation in the CNAS roundtable provided a crucial, principled voice, advocating for a strategy that is not merely defensive but forward-looking. By grounding the discussion in the RQT framework, he made a compelling case that true security lies in advancing a thriving, competitive, and responsible quantum ecosystem—one that leads the world in innovation while being firmly anchored in democratic values and a commitment to the planetary good. The event highlighted the essential role of deep, interdisciplinary dialogue in shaping a quantum future that is both secure and beneficial for all humankind.

Meer lezen

Quantum Technology Impact Assessment (EU AI Alliance, European Commission)

Brussels, 20 April 2023—The emergence of powerful new capabilities in large AI models, such as Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), underscores the critical need to continuously improve and update technology impact assessment tools, ensuring they keep pace with rapid technological development. As defined in recent scholarship, technology impact assessment is the systematic process of monitoring and determining the unintended, indirect, or delayed societal impacts of a future technological innovation. Crucially, it is also about capitalizing on opportunities and enabling responsible innovation from the outset.

An article by Stanford Law’s Mauritz Kop on this topic is also featured on the European Commission's Futurium website.

Shaping the Quantum Innovation Process

Quantum Impact Assessments (QIAs) are emerging as vital practical tools to facilitate the responsible adoption of quantum technologies. There are several related approaches to this assessment: (1) interactive QIA, which seeks to influence and shape the innovation process; (2) constructive QIA, where social issues guide the design of the technology from its earliest stages; and (3) real-time QIA, which connects scientific R&D with social sciences and policy from the start, before a technology becomes locked-in.

Often taking the form of codes of conduct, best practices, roadmaps, and physics de-risking tools, QIA instruments can be used by governments, industry, and academia. These soft law toolsallow stakeholders to explore how current technological developments affect the world we live in and to proactively shape the innovation process toward beneficial, societally robust outcomes.

Exploratory Quantum Technology Assessment

Implementing interdisciplinary, expert-based QIAs can help raise awareness about the ethical, legal, socio-economic, and policy (ELSPI) dimensions of quantum technology, including quantum-classical hybrid systems. For instance, QIAs cultivate a deeper understanding of the potential dual-use character of quantum technology, where beneficial applications (such as quantum sensing for medical diagnostics) can exist alongside potentially harmful ones (such as the same sensors being used for autocratic surveillance).

Building on the foundational work of the 2018 AI Impact Assessment developed by ECP | Platform voor de InformatieSamenleving chaired by Prof. Kees Stuurman, this work presents a prototype of a QIA instrument: the Exploratory Quantum Technology Assessment (EQTA). This pioneering initiative was made possible through a collaboration between the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs & Climate Policy, Quantum Delta NL (QDNL), and ECP. The EQTA will be presented by Eline de Jong and Mauritz Kop at the inaugural Stanford Responsible Quantum Technology Conference in May 2023.

Guidance for Responsible Quantum Technology Implementation

The EQTA provides a comprehensive, practical step-by-step plan that encourages stakeholders to initiate a dialogue to clarify which ethical, legal, and social aspects are important in the creation and application of quantum systems and their interaction with classical technologies. This structured approach helps make the use of quantum technology—as well as the data and algorithms that power it—more transparent and accountable from an early stage.

Looking forward, establishing a risk-based legal-ethical framework in combination with standardization, certification, technology impact assessment, and life-cycle auditing of quantum-driven systems is crucial to stewarding society towards responsible quantum innovation. Mauritz Kop’s research group has written more on this framework in their seminal article Towards Responsible Quantum Technology (Harvard).

Meer lezen

Mauritz Kop Speaks on Quantum Ethics, Intellectual Property and Innovation at NASA SWEEEP Event

On October 3, 2022, a interdisciplinary dialogue on the future of quantum technology and its societal implications took place within a consortium focused on some of the most pressing environmental challenges of our time. Mauritz Kop, a visiting quantum and law scholar at Stanford University, was invited to address a workshop for the SouthWest Engine for Environment and Economic Prosperity (SWEEEP), a major initiative led by a consortium including NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), CalTech, and California State University, Northridge. The event, part of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Regional Innovation Engines program, provided a platform to discuss the intricate web of ethical, legal, socio-economic, and policy implications—termed "Quantum-ELSPI"—that must be navigated as quantum technologies are harnessed to address grand challenges like water scarcity and agricultural sustainability.

The Institutional Context: NASA and the SWEEEP Mission

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), established in 1958, has a storied history of pushing the boundaries of science and technology for the benefit of humanity. While renowned for space exploration, its mission extends deeply into Earth science, utilizing its unique vantage point from space to understand and protect our home planet. From monitoring climate change and weather patterns to managing natural resources, NASA’s work is foundational to global environmental stewardship.

This commitment to terrestrial challenges is exemplified by its involvement in the SWEEEP initiative. SWEEEP is a direct response to the NSF Regional Innovation Engines program, a nationwide effort to catalyze and accelerate regional-scale, R&D-based innovation ecosystems. The program is designed to fund "Engines" that advance critical technologies, address societal challenges, promote economic growth, and cultivate regional talent, with potential funding of up to $160 million over ten years per Engine.

It was within this context of ambitious technological solution-building that Mauritz Kop was invited to provide a crucial perspective on governance and responsible innovation. The leaders of the initiative, including Edward Chow of NASA JPL and Bingbing Li of California State University Northridge, recognized that developing powerful new technologies carries a responsibility to proactively address their societal impact.

Quantum-ELSPI: A Framework for Responsible Innovation

In his address, Mauritz Kop introduced the comprehensive concept of Quantum-ELSPI, arguing for a multidisciplinary approach that integrates ethical, legal, socio-economic, and policy considerations directly into the R&D lifecycle. He stressed the importance of "building bridges between disciplines," enabling quantum physicists and engineers to communicate effectively with experts in the humanities and social sciences. The goal is not to give premature, all-encompassing answers, but to begin by asking the right questions.

For a project like SWEEEP, this means looking beyond the technical specifications of a quantum sensor to consider the legal frameworks for the data it collects, the ethical implications of its use in agriculture, and the socio-economic impact on farming communities. Kop noted that NSF reviewers would likely value such a forward-thinking awareness of the complex societal dimensions of the proposed technological interventions.

Intellectual Property in the Quantum Age: Fostering or Hindering Innovation?

A significant portion of the discussion was dedicated to the role of intellectual property (IP) in the quantum domain. Quantum computers and related systems are extraordinarily complex, comprising myriad components, each potentially protected by its own IP right. Kop described this as a "rainbow of IP rights," where patents, copyrights, trade secrets, and trademarks can create a dense and overlapping landscape.

While IP is designed to incentivize invention, he cautioned that an over-reliance on exclusive rights could lead to "IP overprotection," potentially stifling the cumulative, follow-on innovation that is essential for a burgeoning field like quantum technology. The challenge is to balance the need to protect inventions with the goal of building an open, thriving global quantum ecosystem.

Meer lezen

Mauritz Kop Presents Oxford JIPLP Article on Quantum Computing, IP and Market Power at IPSC 2022, Stanford Law School

IPSC 2022 at Stanford: at the first in-person Intellectual Property Scholars Conference after two virtual years (August 11–12, 2022), Mauritz Kop presented his Oxford JIPLP article Intellectual property in quantum computing and market power: a theoretical discussion and empirical analysis, co-authored with Mateo Aboy and Timo Minssen.

When IP stops doing its job

The theory: intellectual property exists to incentivize innovation, but excessive proliferation of exclusive rights over a foundational technology produces anticommons effects — overlapping thickets that raise transaction costs, deter follow-on research and concentrate first-mover market power. Quantum computing, built on decades of publicly funded science, is exactly where that risk bites hardest.

The patent data behind the argument

The empirics: the article analyzes the quantum-computing patent landscape — who files, where portfolios cluster, and what that implies for market structure in a field whose hardware, algorithms and error-correction methods may all carry exclusive rights. Theory says when proliferation harms innovation; the data say where quantum technology stands today.

A transatlantic collaboration, a Stanford homecoming

Kop, Aboy and Minssen connect European and American IP scholarship on quantum computing; for Kop the venue completed a circle, having spent early 2022 as visiting scholar at Stanford Law School. The presentation put the market-power findings before the scholars best placed to attack the methodology — which is what the IPSC works-in-progress format exists to do. And after two virtual editions, the 22nd IPSC's return to a physical Stanford conference room restored the corridor conversations that turn a panel question into a coauthorship.

Standards: the other half of ownership

Beyond patents, quantum interoperability standards will run on disclosure and licensing commitments from the very portfolio holders the article tracks. Whether those commitments are negotiated early, FRAND-style, or after positions harden will shape access to the technology as surely as any patent dispute — and the article's empirical map is groundwork for getting that negotiation right.

Third station of a research arc

From AI's data inputs (IPSC 2020) via waive-or-pledge quantum IP (IPSC 2021) to ownership structure and market power (2022): the sequence tracks a research line moving from machine learning's raw material to quantum computing's ownership structure, each stage workshopped in public before publication. That line later grew into an institutional one — see Stanford University launches the Stanford Center for Responsible Quantum Technology. If early patent concentration hardens into durable market power, access to the field's foundational capabilities narrows before the technology matures; making that risk empirically discussable, rather than rhetorical, is the article's lasting contribution.

Meer lezen

Intellectual Property, Academics, ConferenceHenry Quentir12 augustus 2022IPSC, Stanford Law School, quantum computing, intellectual property, market power, JIPLP

Intellectual Property in Quantum Computing and Market Power: A Theoretical Discussion and Empirical Analysis (Oxford University Press)

Delighted to see our article ‘Intellectual Property in Quantum Computing and Market Power: A Theoretical Discussion and Empirical Analysis’ -co-authored with my talented friends Prof. Mateo Aboy, PhD, SJD, FIT and Prof. Timo Minssen- published in the Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice (Oxford University Press), the flagship IP peer-reviewed OUP Journal, edited by Prof. Eleonora Rosati. Thanks to the JIPLP team for excellent editorial support! Our article: https://academic.oup.com/jiplp/article/17/8/613/6646536

This piece is the sisterpaper of our Max Planck @ Springer Nature published article titled ‘Mapping the Patent Landscape of Quantum Technologies: Patenting Trends, Innovation and Policy Implications’, which we wrote in parallel. The IIC quantum-patent study can be found here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40319-022-01209-3. Our teamwork was absolutely gratifying and we hope it will inform strategic, evidence based transatlantic policy making.

IP and Antitrust Law

Please find a short synopsis of our work below:

We are on the verge of a technological revolution associated with quantum technologies, including quantum computing and quantum/artificial intelligence hybrids. Its complexity and global significance are creating potential innovation distortions, which could not have been foreseen when current IP and antitrust systems where developed.

Potential IP Overprotection

Using quantitative methods, we investigated our hypothesis that IP overprotection requires a reform of existing IP regimes for quantum tech, to avoid or repair IP thickets, fragmented exclusionary rights and anticommons concerns, lost opportunity costs, and an unwanted concentration of market power.

Perhaps counter-intuitively, we found that there appear to be (at least so far) no such overprotection problems in the real-world quantum computing field to the extent that their consequences would hinder exponential innovation in this specific branch of applied quantum technology, as more and more quantum patent information enters the public domain.

Patents versus Trade Secrets and State Secrets

However, developments taking place in secrecy, either by trade secrets or state secrets, remains the Achilles heel of our empirical approach, as information about these innovations is not represented by our dataset, and thus cannot be observed, replicated or generalized.

Interplay between IP and Antitrust Law: Open or Closed Innovation Systems

Policy makers should urgently answer questions regarding pushing for open or closed innovation systems including the interplay between IP and antitrust law, taking into account dilemma’s pertaining to equal/equitable access to benefits, risk control, ethics, and overall societal impact. Crucially, intellectual property in quantum technology has a national safety and (cyber)security dimension, often beyond the IP toolkit.

Meer lezen

Artificial Intelligence, Data processing, Intellectual Property, Antitrust, Competition Law, Empirical researchMauritz Kop19 juli 2022AI, Intellectueel Eigendom, Data, Antitrust, fair competition

Mauritz Kop and Mateo Aboy Present QT and Law Research at Lund Quantum Conference

When Lund University convened The Quantum Law Conference in late April 2022, the legal scholarship on quantum computing was still in its infancy. Organized by Valentin Jeutner under the WASP-HS-funded Quantum Law Project, the gathering—formally titled The Legal Dimensions of Quantum Computing—gave an early home to a question that has only grown more urgent: whether intellectual property law is fit for the quantum age. Mauritz Kop, then a TTLF Fellow at Stanford Law School, and Mateo Aboy, Principal Research Scholar at the University of Cambridge, brought a distinctive answer—one built on data rather than intuition.

Theory meets the patent record

Kop's theoretical contribution warned of IP overprotection: a "rainbow" of overlapping rights that could entrench first movers and concentrate market power in a young field. Rather than rest on the argument, the team tested it. Aboy led a patent-landscape study of the quantum computing subfield, asking whether feared "thicket" and "anticommons" effects were actually appearing. The pairing of a normative framework with empirical patent analysis is what made the Lund presentation unusual—and useful to policymakers who need evidence, not assertion.

A counter-intuitive result

The data pointed the other way. The patent system in quantum computing was not, at that stage, generating innovation-choking overprotection; instead, a growing share of quantum patent information was entering the publicly available disclosure record through lapsed and non-granted filings, forming an expanding information commons. The important caveat was secrecy: trade secrets and state secrets ordinarily do not appear in patent datasets, so quantitative mapping must always be read alongside qualitative analysis. The conclusion was measured—IP law works best in concert with competition law, steering between under- and overprotection.

From a conference room toward the journals

The work is not staying in Lund. The theoretical and market-power strand is forthcoming as a peer-reviewed article in the Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice (Oxford University Press), and the companion patent-landscape study is forthcoming in IIC – International Review of Intellectual Property and Competition Law (Springer), with a transatlantic author team spanning Stanford, Cambridge, and CeBIL at the University of Copenhagen. Together they promise one of the earliest evidence-based treatments of quantum-IP policy. It is a quieter companion to Kop's better-known warning that quantum computing carries risks that rival those of artificial intelligence: here the concern is not catastrophe but market structure—who gets to build on quantum technology, and on what terms. The answer the Lund research offers is calibration, not maximalism: predictability enough to attract investment, openness enough to keep the field competitive.

Meer lezen

Intellectual Property, Quantum Technology, AcademicsMauritz Kop2 mei 2022Mauritz Kop, Quantum Governance, Quantum Technology, Intellectual Property, Patents, Mateo Aboy, Timo Minssen, Lund University, Conference, Competition Law, JIPLP, IIC

Mauritz Kop Lecturer AI Regulation and Intellectual Property Law at CEIPI, University of Strasbourg

Strasbourg, France – We are pleased to feature insights from a lecture on "Intellectual Property and Ownership of AI Input and Output Data" delivered by Professor Mauritz Kop at the Centre for International Intellectual Property Studies (CEIPI), University of Strasbourg. This session was part of the University Diploma in Artificial Intelligence and Intellectual Property.

Rights and responsibilities pertaining to AI and data

Professor Kop, a Fellow at Stanford University and a strategic IP lawyer, shared his expertise on the rights and responsibilities pertaining to AI and data, offering both theoretical perspectives and practical tips at the current state of technological and legal development. The lecture aimed to equip attendees with a bird's-eye view of the intertwined key elements of this multidimensional topic.

AI, data governance, and intellectual property law

Professor Kop's session underscored the dynamic interplay between AI advancement, data governance, and intellectual property law. It highlighted the necessity for legal professionals to be "double or triple educated" to navigate this complex field and for ongoing efforts to create legal frameworks that foster responsible innovation while addressing societal and ethical considerations.

The lecture concluded by stressing that AI literacy and awareness, continuous learning, and proactive legal strategies are essential for all stakeholders in the AI ecosystem.

Meer lezen

Artificial Intelligence, Data processing, Intellectual PropertyMauritz Kop17 maart 2022AI, data, Intellectual Property Law

Mauritz Kop Consults Senator Mark Warner on AI & Quantum Technology Policy

Washington D.C., January 4, 2022—As the United States Congress grapples with the complex challenges of regulating artificial intelligence and quantum technology, leading policymakers are seeking expert guidance to inform a robust and forward-thinking national strategy. On January 4, 2022, Mauritz Kop, a distinguished scholar in the field of technology law and governance, was consulted by the legal team of U.S. Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) to provide strategic insights on both AI and quantum technology policy.

This consultation highlights the growing recognition in Washington of the need for deep, interdisciplinary expertise to navigate the geopolitical, economic, and security dimensions of these transformative technologies. Senator Warner's team reached out to Kop based on his influential scholarship, including his extensive work at Stanford on the EU AI Act and the need for a strategic democratic tech alliance, his advisory role for the European Commission led by Ursula von der Leyen on the AI Act and Data Act, and his foundational article in the Yale Journal of Law & Technology proposing a comprehensive legal-ethical framework for quantum technology.

Senator Mark Warner: A Leader on Technology and National Security

Senator Mark Warner's engagement on these issues is both significant and timely. As the Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, he is at the forefront of addressing the national security implications of emerging technologies. His work involves overseeing the U.S. Intelligence Community and ensuring it is equipped to handle the threats and opportunities of the 21st century, where technological competition with nations like China is a central concern.

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has a broad mandate that includes analyzing intelligence on the technological capabilities of foreign powers and assessing the vulnerabilities of U.S. critical infrastructure. Senator Warner has been a vocal proponent of developing a national strategy for AI and quantum to maintain the United States' competitive edge and to ensure that these technologies are developed and deployed in a manner consistent with democratic values. This consultation with Mauritz Kop reflects the Senator's commitment to drawing on leading academic research to shape sound, bipartisan policy.

AI Policy: A Transatlantic, Risk-Based Approach that Lets Innovation Breathe

A key focus of the consultation was Kop's analysis of the European Union's AI Act. His Stanford publications argue for a balanced, pro-innovation regulatory model that can serve as a blueprint for international cooperation. Good governance and sensible legislation should incentivize desired behavior and simultaneously create breathing room for sustainable, beneficial innovation to flourish.

Quantum Governance: Establishing a Legal-Ethical Framework

The discussion also delved into the governance of quantum technology, drawing on Kop's seminal work in the Yale Journal of Law & Technology. Recognizing that quantum is rapidly moving from the theoretical to the practical, he stressed the urgency of establishing a legal-ethical framework before the technology is widely deployed and locked-in.

The consultation with Senator Warner's office represents a critical intersection of academic scholarship and high-level policymaking. As the United States charts its course in the era of AI and quantum, the insights provided by experts like Mauritz Kop are invaluable in ensuring that the nation's strategy is not only competitive but also responsible, ethical, and firmly rooted in democratic principles.

Meer lezen

Music Law at the Royal Conservatoire The Hague

Returning to my old flame for 1 day: looking forward to teaching music law at the Royal Conservatoire The Hague tomorrow! https://www.koncon.nl/en/

It's nice not having to speak or write about AI, data or quantum technology for a change... ;)

Teaching music law at the Royal Conservatoire The Hague

I am giving an in person guest lecture to a small group of students at the Amare - Den Haag, and it is live streamed to the rest of the department. The Amare is home to Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT) as well, one of the world’s leading contemporary dance & ballet companies, dedicated to creation, research, innovation and talent development. https://www.ndt.nl/en/

Using self-produced audio fragments and practical examples, we cover 18 music law topics ranging from registering intellectual property rights to strategic contract negotiations. The tracks I prepared are played from my Powerpoint into a phenomenal pair of Bowers & Wilkins monitors, the ultimate sound system. https://www.muziekenrecht.nl/blog/2017/6/music-licensing-in-the-netherlands-movies-games-legal-aspects

Looking back in nostalgia to the cross-disciplinary masterclasses I had the pleasure of teaching in recent years inter alia at Leiden University, Utrecht University and Conservatorium Maastricht. https://www.musicajuridica.nl/blog/2017/5/gastcollege-intellectueel-eigendom-conservatorium-maastricht

CPO Radboud University seminar at Het Concertgebouw Amsterdam

Absolute highlight was the postgraduate CPO Radboud University seminar at Het Concertgebouw Amsterdam on music & law, which included a public domain quiz musically framed by an ad hoc ensemble of Koninklijk Concertgebouworkest musicians featuring the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Maarten Feteris on piano and me (Mauritz Kop) on clarinet es/bes, performing bespoke Mozart, Beethoven and Bach arrangements. https://www.muziekenrecht.nl/blog/2018/cpo-seminar-muziek-recht-concertgebouw-amsterdam

Kudos to the KonCon management for making sure their talented students have firsthand access to vital information about the inner workings of the music & entertainment industry!

Meer lezen

Intellectual Property, Licenties, Muziekrecht, Naburige rechtenMauritz Kop15 december 2021Music, Law, Intellectual Property, Copyright, Art

Integrating Bespoke IP Regimes for Quantum Technology into National Security Policy

Should countries be able to treat quantum technology the way they treat fissionable materials—suspending patents and trade-secret enforcement when national security demands it? That is the provocative proposal at the center of Integrating Bespoke IP Regimes for Quantum Technology into National Security Policy, a 2021 Stanford working paper by Mauritz Kop and Mark Brongersma, posted as a preprint. The authors argue that quantum needs innovation-policy mechanisms cut to the physics of the very small, then folded into national security law.

A bespoke regime for a dual-use technology

Quantum, the authors observe, is an early-stage family of technologies—comparable to the transistor in the 1960s—whose dual-use character spans civil benefit and military harm. Because appropriable value lives simultaneously in hardware, software, and trade secrets, a legal regime borrowed wholesale from software or biotech will misfire. The paper surveys a toolkit drawn from adjacent fields—AI, biotechnology, nanotechnology, semiconductors, and nuclear—and argues that intellectual property and antitrust law must work in concert so that quantum does not deepen existing inequalities. Their guiding stance is twofold and deliberately paradoxical: treat quantum as genuinely unprecedented, but also learn from the history of adjacent technologies. This work runs alongside the market-power analysis Kop would later develop in intellectual property in quantum computing and market power, carrying the inquiry from competition theory into the harder terrain of national security law.

Pro-quantum antitrust and democratized access

Concretely, the authors weigh pro-quantum antitrust enforcement, the waiving and pledging of IP including compulsory licenses, and the democratization of essential technology. They confront the tension honestly: leading quantum startups have relied on IP protection—especially trade secrets—to raise capital, yet enclosing the foundational concepts of quantum computation and communication risks entrenching winner-takes-all dynamics against a community consensus on the right to equal access. Beyond IP, they catalog prizes, subsidies, state funding, and education as further levers for incentivizing progress.

A new TRIPS security exception

The paper's signature proposal is a new Article 73(b)(iv) security exception to the TRIPS Agreement, giving states the strategic option to exclude quantum technologies from IP protection—mirroring how the existing exception treats fissionable materials, and capable of serving either disclosure or secrecy. Situating quantum within a longer pendulum of open and closed innovation, the authors warn against a convergence of overstretched IP rights and progress made in secret, and close with a call for further multidisciplinary research. The result is a structured agenda for designing quantum innovation policy attuned to both its physics and its geopolitics, complementing the call for a strategic technology alliance among democratic countries.

Meer lezen

Mauritz Kop Presents Quantum: Waive or Pledge IP at IPSC 2021, Cardozo Law School

IPSC 2021 at Cardozo: on August 4, 2021, Mauritz Kop presented Quantum: Waive or Pledge IP at the Intellectual Property Scholars Conference, hosted online by Cardozo Law School — putting the intellectual-property architecture of quantum technology before the IP academy while the field's patent landscape was still forming.

A real policy dilemma in three words

Waive or pledge: if quantum computing's basic building blocks rest on decades of publicly funded research, should foundational exclusive rights be waived for defined categories — or kept but pledged, FRAND-style, against assertion? The presentation developed both instruments and their hybrids, from quantum-specific patent pledges to compulsory licensing and shorter, innovation-cycle-calibrated protection terms — an IP architecture for a technology whose patent landscape was consolidating faster than its governance.

Physics that unsettles doctrine

The no-cloning theorem forbids perfectly copying an arbitrary unknown quantum state — friction at the foundations for IP regimes predicated on the act of duplication. A law built around copying meets quantum states that cannot, even in principle, be copied; the legal-ethical groundwork for that collision is laid in Establishing a Legal-Ethical Framework for Quantum Technology.

From workshop draft to Berkeley Technology Law Journal

The critiqued draft matured into the Berkeley Technology Law Journal article mapping patents, trade secrets and copyright onto quantum hardware, algorithms and software — and arguing where bespoke instruments serve innovation better than one-size-fits-all exclusivity. The IPSC room's questions — incentives, successor liability, category definition — made the published version sturdier. That is what the works-in-progress format is for: short presentations, dense Q&A, no proceedings, everything in service of the draft.

Patent scholars meet information-law scholars

Cardozo's host program tilts the IPSC room toward information-law questions — data, platforms, access — so a waive-or-pledge proposal had to satisfy both the incentive logic of the patent scholars and the access logic of the information-law side. A proposal that survives both audiences is closer to policy-ready than one bred in either camp alone.

Arriving early, on purpose

In August 2021 quantum technology was still mostly a physics story in the legal academy. Presenting a worked-out IP architecture then put waive-or-pledge on the scholarly agenda while policy could still shape the landscape rather than litigate it afterward. The instrument-matching logic — pledge where the ecosystem polices itself, waive where concentration would gate basic science, keep compulsory licensing in reserve as the credible threat that keeps the voluntary instruments honest — has only gained relevance as the quantum patent landscape has consolidated since.

Meer lezen

Intellectual Property, Academics, ConferenceHenry Quentir4 augustus 2021IPSC, Cardozo Law, quantum computing, intellectual property, patent pledges

Beyond IP Innovation Law: The Bigger Picture

Intellectual property is a powerful driver of innovation—but it is not the only one. In Beyond IP Innovation Law: The Bigger Picture, posted as a preprint and forthcoming in the European Media, IP & IT Law Review (MR-Int), Mauritz Kop argues that a serious innovation policy for the Fourth Industrial Revolution must reach past exclusive rights toward a fuller toolkit: prizes, grants, antitrust, commons-based production, open innovation, and a vital public domain.

Sustainable innovation law beyond IP

The essay frames "sustainable innovation law" as the interface between creativity, technology, society, and law—combining information law, antitrust, consumer protection, and fundamental rights with AI, machine learning, big data, quantum computing, CRISPR-Cas9, and virtual reality. Its test is normative: innovation counts as sustainable only when it is ethical and social, economically beneficial, conducive to well-being, and supportive of the environment. Once IP loses its monopoly on the policy imagination, a longer menu of incentive mechanisms—competitions, subsidies, tort law, market regulation, R&D tax incentives—comes into view, and choosing among them becomes the real task of the lawmaker.

Why AI can do without IP incentives

Applied to artificial intelligence, the argument is pointed: the classical justifications for IP are weak when applied to AI, and AI "can do without IP incentives," with narrow exceptions such as a medical AI system whose costly clinical trials might warrant patents or, equally, public subsidy. Human authorship and inventorship remain the normative anchor, and machine output that crosses an "autonomy threshold" should fall into the public domain under a model Kop calls Res Publicae ex Machina. The essay also presses for broad text-and-data-mining freedom—even an articulated right to process data for machine learning—so that training datasets, a prerequisite for supervised learning, do not become an IP chokepoint. This complements his theoretical and empirical work on quantum computing and intellectual property law.

A horizontal-vertical innovation architecture

Because incentives and risks vary by sector and by technology, the paper proposes a horizontal-vertical design: horizontal core rules for all 4IR technologies, plus vertical, risk-based regimes organized around a "pyramid of criticality" from low risk at the base to existential risk at the top. The calibration is physics-aware—an open posture may suit AI, while quantum technology warrants more ab initio control given its potential anthropogenic risks, a precautionary tilt Kop develops further in his work on ethics in the quantum age. Written against the European Commission's April 2021 draft AI Regulation, the essay reads that proposal as a "North Star" and urges that safety norms, interoperability standards, and the Trustworthy AI doctrine be embedded directly into the design of technology, monitored through life-cycle impact assessments. The bigger picture, in short, is an innovation law built for purpose—not the reflexive extension of twentieth-century IP.

Meer lezen

Blog over Kunstmatige Intelligentie, Quantum, Deep Learning, Blockchain en Big Data Law

The Center for a New American Security: Shaping the National Security Debate

A High-Stakes Convening of Quantum Leaders

Conclusion: A Principled Approach to Quantum Technology Governance

Shaping the Quantum Innovation Process

Exploratory Quantum Technology Assessment

Guidance for Responsible Quantum Technology Implementation

The Institutional Context: NASA and the SWEEEP Mission

Quantum-ELSPI: A Framework for Responsible Innovation

Intellectual Property in the Quantum Age: Fostering or Hindering Innovation?

When IP stops doing its job

The patent data behind the argument

A transatlantic collaboration, a Stanford homecoming

Standards: the other half of ownership

Third station of a research arc

IP and Antitrust Law

Potential IP Overprotection

Patents versus Trade Secrets and State Secrets

Interplay between IP and Antitrust Law: Open or Closed Innovation Systems

Theory meets the patent record

A counter-intuitive result

From a conference room toward the journals

Rights and responsibilities pertaining to AI and data

AI, data governance, and intellectual property law

Senator Mark Warner: A Leader on Technology and National Security

AI Policy: A Transatlantic, Risk-Based Approach that Lets Innovation Breathe

Quantum Governance: Establishing a Legal-Ethical Framework

Teaching music law at the Royal Conservatoire The Hague

CPO Radboud University seminar at Het Concertgebouw Amsterdam

A bespoke regime for a dual-use technology

Pro-quantum antitrust and democratized access

A new TRIPS security exception

A real policy dilemma in three words

Physics that unsettles doctrine

From workshop draft to Berkeley Technology Law Journal

Patent scholars meet information-law scholars

Arriving early, on purpose

Sustainable innovation law beyond IP

Why AI can do without IP incentives

A horizontal-vertical innovation architecture

Juridische diensten en projecten in Nederland en daarbuiten