Public Property from the Machine published in Harmonizing Intellectual Property Law for a Trans-Atlantic Knowledge Economy

Brill | Nijhoff's edited volume Harmonizing Intellectual Property Law for a Trans-Atlantic Knowledge Economy—edited by Péter Mezei, Hannibal Travis, and Anett Pogácsás, with a foreword by Maciej Szpunar—includes a chapter by Mauritz Kop, founder of the Stanford Center for Responsible Quantum Technology, titled Public Property from the Machine. The chapter confronts the question generative artificial intelligence forces on intellectual property law: who should own what a machine makes when no human authored it.

A new category, not a new right

Kop's answer breaks with the reflex to meet new output with new ownership. He argues that human authorship and inventorship remain the normative basis of copyright and patent law, and that—on the chapter's account—extending those rights to fully AI-generated works would chill innovation, narrow cultural diversity, and crowd the commons. In their place he proposes Res Publicae ex Machina—public property from the machine—a deliberately designed, permission-free public-domain regime for creations and inventions that have crossed the autonomy threshold, the point at which output is produced without meaningful human creative contribution. He frames the move as a Pareto improvement: many gain access, and no legal person loses a right that was ever warranted.

Rooted in the articulated public domain

The proposal develops Kop's earlier AI & Intellectual Property: Towards an Articulated Public Domain, published in the Texas Intellectual Property Law Journal in 2020, which argued for designing the public domain deliberately rather than treating it as the leftover of whatever rights fail to attach. The 2024 chapter applies that foundation to machine-generated subject matter under a named regime—so the two are best read as a sequence: the foundational article first, the autonomous-output application second. The same design-first instinct that animates Kop's responsible-innovation work, including the Ten Principles for Responsible Quantum Innovation, runs through the chapter: shape the rules before the defaults harden.

Why it matters for trans-Atlantic IP

Placing the argument inside a volume on trans-Atlantic harmonization is deliberate. The familiar questions—can an AI be an author, can an AI be an inventor—assume ownership is the only available category. Public Property from the Machine insists that public property is a category too—one the chapter argues is more defensible for output no human authored. For the United States and Europe, the practical question becomes not how to extend private rights to machines but what to agree to leave free. The fuller portrait of the scholar behind the proposal is set out in the Mauritz Kop profile. The chapter is a scholarly proposal rather than a statement of existing law—but it reframes a debate that has too often had only one answer on offer.

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Intellectual Property, Artificial Intelligence, InnovationMauritz Kop6 mei 2024Mauritz Kop, AI, Stanford RQT, Intellectual Property, Public Domain, Generative AI, Copyright, Patents, Brill, Res Publicae ex Machina, Trans-Atlantic

Mauritz Kop Guest Professor at US Air Force Academy

Colorado Springs, April 25, 2024. We are pleased to highlight Professor Mauritz Kop's recent engagement as a guest professor at the prestigious United States Air Force Academy on April 25, 2024. Professor Kop, Founding Director of the Stanford Center for Responsible Quantum Technology (RQT), addressed talented cadets on "Models for Responsible Regulation of Quantum Information Sciences." The class was an integral part of the Law and Emerging Tech program, led by Professor Aubrey Davis.

Professor Kop's lecture provided a comprehensive overview of the rapidly evolving landscape of quantum technologies and the critical need for proactive, responsible governance, particularly in the context of global geopolitical dynamics.

The Quantum Frontier: Opportunities and Geostrategic Challenges

The session commenced by acknowledging the significant global interest and investment in quantum technologies, noting China's relentless advances in AI and quantum, particularly in quantum networking, which has spurred anxieties about America’s technological supremacy. This technological race brings forth a deeper, existential concern: the potential effects of authoritarian regimes exporting their values into democratic societies through their technology.

Responsible Quantum Technology (RQT) and Its Operationalization

The discussion delved into the critical concept of Quantum-ELSPI (Ethical, Legal, Socio-economic, and Policy Implications), which must be proactively considered for any emerging technology. Quantum-ELSPI, he argued, should inspire the practice of Responsible Quantum Technology (RQT). The Stanford-led RQT framework integrates ELSPI perspectives into quantum R&D, deployment, and adoption, responding to the Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) dimensions of anticipation, inclusion, reflection, and responsiveness (AIRR).

To make RQT actionable, Professor Kop introduced the 10 Principles for Responsible Quantum Innovation, developed by his multidisciplinary research group. These principles are organized under the SEA framework (Safeguarding, Engaging, and Advancing Quantum Technology) and aim to guide regulatory interventions and cultivate responsible practices across precautionary and permissionless innovation systems. Operationalizing these principles requires continuous multi-stakeholder collaboration throughout the lifecycle of quantum systems, involving standard-setting bodies like ISO, NIST, and IEEE, and potentially new oversight mechanisms like an "Atomic Agency for Quantum-AI".

The Role of Interdisciplinary Collaboration and Education

Highlighting the importance of diverse perspectives, Professor Kop, who integrates his background in law, music, and art into his quantum work, emphasized the need to go beyond siloed approaches to solve the hypercomplex matters arising from quantum technology. He referenced the Stanford Center for RQT's work, its multidisciplinary approach to tackling ELSPI, and its mission to foster competitive, values-based, equitable quantum ecosystems. Initiatives like the annual Stanford RQT Conference and the newly launched Stanford Quantum Incubator aim to bring the quantum community together, bridge gaps between academia, government, investors, and industry, and promote quantum literacy.

Professor Kop concluded by underscoring the urgent need for developing robust models for the responsible regulation of quantum information sciences to ensure that these powerful new capabilities benefit humanity and uphold democratic values.

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Academics, University, Quantum TechnologyMauritz Kop25 april 2024US Air Force Academy, Quantum Governance, AI, Democracy, Innovation, Defense, National Security, Mauritz Kop, Aubrey Davis

Hoover Institution Invites Mauritz Kop to Speak on Quantum, Democracy and Authoriarianism

Professor Mauritz Kop Addresses Quantum Technology's Role in the Era of Digital Repression at Hoover Institution Workshop

Palo Alto, CA – April 22, 2024 – Professor Mauritz Kop, Founding Director of the Stanford Center for Responsible Quantum Technology (RQT), delivered insightful opening remarks at a breakout session on Quantum Technology as part of the two-day closed door workshop, "Getting Ahead of Digital Repression: Authoritarian Innovation and Democratic Response." The workshop, held on April 22-23, 2024, at Hoover Institution, Stanford University, was a collaborative effort by the National Endowment for Democracy’s International Forum for Democratic Studies, Stanford University’s Global Digital Policy Incubator, and the Hoover Institution’s China’s Global Sharp Power Project.

The event convened leading researchers and advocates to map how digital authoritarians are innovating globally and to identify new strategies for ongoing knowledge-sharing and cooperation to confront this deepening challenge. The agenda focused on understanding how autocrats leverage emerging technologies—from AI and digital currencies to quantum technology—for social control, censorship, and to export their governance models.

Guardrails Against Digital Authoritarianism

Professor Kop's address served as a crucial discussion starter for the breakout session, which aimed to brainstorm how advances in quantum technology might alter the dynamics of the struggle against digital authoritarianism and to explore potential guardrails. His remarks underscored the profound societal impact of quantum technologies and the imperative for proactive, principles-based governance to ensure they are developed and deployed responsibly, safeguarding human rights and democratic values on a global scale.

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Hoover Institution, Governance, Quantum Technology, Artificial Intelligence, Democracy, AuthoritarianismMauritz Kop22 april 2024Hoover Institution, Quantum, AI, Democracy, Governance, Democracy versus Authoritarianism

IOP Quantum Science and Technology publishes Ten Principles for Responsible Quantum Innovation

Stanford, April 22, 2024—The leading peer-reviewed journal Quantum Science and Technology has published the open-access article, "Ten Principles for Responsible Quantum Innovation," a significant paper that offers actionable guidance for the ethical development of quantum technologies. The publication is the result of a two-year, deeply interdisciplinary study by a transatlantic group of leading scholars and represents a major step forward in operationalizing a framework for responsible quantum innovation.

This work builds upon the foundational research of the group, including the "Towards Responsible Quantum Technology" paper published by the Harvard Berkman Klein Center, and will be central to the mission of the Stanford Center for Responsible Quantum Technology.

A Global, Interdisciplinary Collaboration

The paper is a testament to the power of global, interdisciplinary collaboration. Authored by a spectacular team of leading lights in law, philosophy & ethics, socioeconomics, data science, quantum physics, materials science & engineering, and innovation policy, the study brings together a wealth of expertise from the world's most prestigious academic institutions.

The author group, led by Mauritz Kop of Stanford University, includes Mateo Aboy (University of Cambridge), Eline De Jong (University of Amsterdam), Urs Gasser (Technical University of Munich), Timo Minssen (University of Copenhagen), I. Glenn Cohen (Harvard University), Mark Brongersma (Stanford University), Teresa Quintel (Maastricht University), Luciano Floridi (University of Oxford and Yale University), and Raymond Laflamme (University of Waterloo). This formidable team provides a holistic and robust foundation for the quantum governance principles outlined in the paper.

A Framework for Responsible Quantum Innovation

The paper's central contribution is a set of ten guiding principles designed to operationalize a framework for Responsible Quantum Technology (RQT). This framework seeks to integrate considerations of the Ethical, Legal, Social, and Policy Implications (ELSPI) of quantum technologies directly into the research and development lifecycle, while also responding to the core dimensions of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI): anticipation, inclusion, reflection, and responsiveness.

The principles are organized into three functional categories, termed the SEA framework, which provides a methodological guide for the quantum community:

Safeguarding: This pillar focuses on the proactive identification and mitigation of risks associated with quantum technologies.
Engaging: This principle emphasizes the critical need for inclusive and continuous dialogue among all stakeholders, from researchers and industry to policymakers and the public.
Advancing: This pillar is dedicated to ensuring that quantum technology is actively steered towards desirable societal outcomes and contributes to addressing the world's most pressing challenges.

The Ten Principles for Responsible Quantum Innovation

The Ten Principles paper proposes the following ten actionable principles to help address the risks, challenges, and opportunities associated with the entire suite of second-generation quantum technologies:

Information Security: Make information security an integral part of QT, proactively addressing security threats, including the risk quantum computers pose to current encryption standards.
Dual Use: Proactively anticipate the malicious use of quantum applications by addressing the risks of dual-use technologies that can be employed for both beneficial and harmful purposes.
Quantum Race: Seek international collaboration based on shared values to address the winner-takes-all dynamics of a potential quantum arms race.
Quantum Gap: Consider our planet as the sociotechnical environment in which QT should function, engaging states to ensure equitable access and prevent a "quantum divide."
Intellectual Property: Incentivize innovation while being as open as possible and as closed as necessary, engaging institutions to find the right balance between protecting intellectual property and fostering an open research environment.
Inclusion: Pursue diverse R&D communities in terms of disciplines and people, engaging a wide range of voices to ensure a holistic approach to innovation.
Societal Relevance: Link quantum R&D explicitly to desirable societal goals, advancing society by focusing on applications that address pressing needs.
Complementary Innovation: Actively stimulate sustainable, cross-disciplinary innovation, advancing technology by exploring synergies with other fields like AI and biotechnology.
Responsibility: Create an ecosystem to learn about the possible uses and consequences of QT applications, advancing our understanding of Responsible QT through continuous feedback and assessment.
Education and Dialogue: Facilitate dialogues with stakeholders to better envision possible quantum futures, advancing our collective thinking and education about QT and its impact.

A Catalyst for a Values-Based Quantum Future

The overarching objective of this interdisciplinary effort is to steer the development and use of quantum technology in a direction that is not only consistent with a values-based society but also actively contributes to solving its most significant challenges. The "Ten Principles for Responsible Quantum Innovation" provides a crucial foundation for this work.

The paper is a call to action for the entire quantum community—researchers, industry leaders, policymakers, and the public—to engage in the vital work of building a responsible quantum ecosystem. As the authors conclude, the goal is to develop and operationalize these guiding principles into the best practices and real-world applications that will define the quantum future. The annual Stanford RQT Conference, among other initiatives, will continue to provide a forum for these critical, interdisciplinary discussions.

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Mauritz Kop Teaches Stanford Quantum Computing Association Students at Stanford Electrical Engineering

STANFORD, CA, April 16, 2024 – Today, Mauritz Kop, Founding Director of the newly established Stanford Center for Responsible Quantum Technology (RQT), delivered a lecture to the Stanford Quantum Computing Association (SQCA) at Stanford Electrical Engineering, titled "A Call for Responsible Quantum Technology." The interdisciplinary lecture was a featured event in the SQCA's distinguished "Industry Nights" speaker series and concluded with an engaging question-and-answer session with Stanford's outstanding physics, computer science, and electrical engineering students.

The Stanford Quantum Computing Association (SQCA)

The Stanford Quantum Computing Association (SQCA) serves as a vital hub for the university's burgeoning quantum community, connecting students across disciplines with the forefront of quantum innovation. SQCA’s mission is to establish and support a quantum computing community at Stanford by building bridges between students, researchers, and faculty from various departments interested in the field. Its "Industry Nights" series consistently hosts influential voices from leading companies and research institutions such as Google Quantum AI, D-Wave Quantum, and Quantinuum, providing quantum computing students with direct access to the field's pioneers. The SQCA also acts as a liaison between the Stanford quantum community and academic and industry groups outside the university. Its activities include hosting talks, holding workshops, and organizing projects.

Ethics, Law, Societal Impact, Economics, and Policy

During his talk, Professor Kop outlined a comprehensive vision for navigating the dawn of the quantum age. He introduced the concepts of the Quantum-ELSPI metaparadigm—which addresses the ethical, legal, socio-economic, and policy implications of the technology—and the Responsible Quantum Technology (RQT) framework developed by a transatlantic team of interdisciplinary scholars. The RQT framework, Kop explained, integrates these ELSPI perspectives into the entire lifecycle of quantum research and development, from the lab to the market.

To make this framework actionable, Kop presented the "10 Principles for Responsible Quantum Innovation," a guide designed to operationalize RQT. These principles are organized into three functional categories: Safeguarding, Engaging, and Advancing (SEA). A crucial insight shared was that safeguarding society and humanity can often be best achieved by responsibly advancing quantum technology. This vision was recently detailed in a paper co-authored by Kop and his team, "A Call for Responsible Quantum Technology," which was notably published in the prestigious journal Nature Physics on April 9, 2024, lending significant credibility to the mission of embedding responsible governance within the scientific community.

Stanford Center for RQT and Stanford Quantum Incubator (SQI) Launch

The lecture was also marked by two significant announcements for the Stanford quantum community. Kop officially introduced the Stanford Center for RQT, a new multidisciplinary center under his leadership that aims to influence the emerging quantum technology governance cycle and foster a competitive, values-based quantum ecosystem. He also unveiled the recent launch of the Stanford Quantum Incubator (SQI), a Silicon Valley business catalyst designed to bridge the gap between academia, government, investors, and industry to accelerate quantum development and adoption.

The presentation underscored the massive global implications of quantum technology, which is poised to transform everything from healthcare and energy to defense and materials science. By engaging directly with the next generation of quantum scientists and engineers at the SQCA, Kop emphasized the shared responsibility of the entire community to steer these powerful technologies toward beneficial societal and planetary outcomes while the field is still malleable.

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Teaching, Quantum Technology, StanfordMauritz Kop16 april 2024Stanford Quantum Computing Association, Students, Mauritz Kop, Physics, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Teaching

Stanford Law School Legal Aggregate Q&A with SLS's Mauritz Kop on Quantum Technologies

Stanford Law School's Legal Aggregate blog has run a Q&A with Mauritz Kop—SLS's Mauritz Kop Discusses Quantum Technology and the Need for Legal and Policy Guardrails—published a day after his Nature Physics comment A Call for Responsible Quantum Technology, co-authored with Urs Gasser and Eline De Jong. The conversation translates a scholarly argument for responsible quantum technology into terms a general readership can act on.

Guardrails as a design choice

The interview's frame is constructive rather than alarmist: the case for legal and policy guardrails is the case for capturing quantum technology's benefits responsibly, while the field's commercial and strategic shape is still being set. Because qubits can hold superpositions of states and become entangled, quantum systems unsettle long-standing assumptions—about what can be measured, copied, or kept secret—that current law and infrastructure quietly rely on. Addressing that upstream, the argument runs, is cheaper and more credible than reacting to harms after deployment. The piece is equally careful about timing: much of the field's most consequential promise depends on advances in error correction and the management of decoherence, and it is exactly that gap between current machines and eventual capability that makes early, revisable governance the prudent course.

Scholarship built to be cited

A distinctive thread is Kop's publication strategy: placing work in both scientific and legal journals so that policymakers can cite it and build durable policy on top of it—across national security, export controls, supply chains, intellectual property, and standardization. The Nature Physics comment makes the foundational move, calling on the research community to take shared responsibility for defining the principles and practices of responsible quantum technology rather than leaving that to after-the-fact regulation.

Institution-building at Stanford

The Q&A situates the argument inside the work then underway at Stanford Law School—a newly launched center for responsible quantum technology, a quantum incubator, and an annual conference, the second edition of which was covered in the 2nd Annual Stanford Responsible Quantum Technology Conference summary. The fuller portrait of the scholar behind the program is set out in the Mauritz Kop profile. The result is a single message in two registers: responsible governance of quantum technology is an upstream design choice, best made while the technology, the market, and the law are all still forming. It is a message that echoes a recurring theme in the parallel governance of artificial intelligence: that durable rules tend to rest on a credible evidentiary record assembled before the technology matures. The Legal Aggregate Q&A reads, in that light, as an attempt to apply that insight to quantum technology one cycle earlier.

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Quantum Technology, Stanford, PolicyMauritz Kop10 april 2024Mauritz Kop, Quantum Governance, Policy, Stanford RQT, Quantum Technology, Urs Gasser, Legal Aggregate, Nature Physics, Quantum Guardrails, Eline De Jong

Nature Physics publishes A Call for Responsible Quantum Technology by Urs Gasser, Eline De Jong and Mauritz Kop

The leading journal Nature Physics has published "A Call for Responsible Quantum Technology," a significant Comment piece authored by a transatlantic team of scholars: Urs Gasser, Eline De Jong, and Mauritz Kop. Published on April 9, 2024, the article serves as a manifesto of the Stanford Center for Responsible Quantum Technology (RQT). It presents a compelling argument for proactively establishing ethical and societal guardrails for quantum technology (QT) while the field is still in its formative stages.

Citation: Gasser, U., De Jong, E. & Kop, M. A call for responsible quantum technology. Nat. Phys. 20, 525–527 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-024-02462-8

This foundational work builds upon the Stanford Center for RQT's prior scholarship, including the foundational paper "Towards Responsible Quantum Technology" published at Harvard and the University of California, and the "10 Principles for Responsible Quantum Innovation" published at IOP Science & Technology. All three authors are members of the Stanford RQT Center, which is founded and directed by Kop, who also served as the senior and corresponding author on the Nature publication. The article crystallizes the Center's crucial mission: to guide the development of quantum technologies in a direction that is safe, ethical, and beneficial for humanity and the planet.

Watch Urs Gasser and Eline De Jong present their Nature publication at the Stanford Responsible Quantum Technology Conference here: https://youtu.be/2vA9fID-7SA?si=MV67C9jN34UlsmuW&t=1279

The Core Argument: A Proactive Stance on Quantum Governance

The central thesis of "A Call for Responsible Quantum Technology" is both clear and urgent: the time to consider and implement governance frameworks for QT is now. The authors draw a crucial lesson from the history of other powerful innovations, such as nuclear fission and artificial intelligence (AI), where ethical, legal, and social considerations were often addressed reactively, "once the genie is already out of the bottle." Given the potentially transformative and disruptive power of quantum, the article argues that repeating this mistake is not an option.

A Framework for Responsible Quantum Innovation

To navigate this complex landscape, the authors propose a comprehensive framework for Responsible Quantum Technology. This is not a call for premature, heavy-handed legislation but for a systematic approach to anticipate and manage the ethical, legal, social, and policy implications (ELSPI) throughout the entire QT lifecycle.

The framework is designed to be operationalized through a set of quantum-specific guiding principles, which the authors organize into three functional categories, known as the SEA principles:

Safeguarding: Principles focused on mitigating downside risks, requiring that issues like information security and malicious dual-use scenarios are considered from the outset of research and development.
Engaging: Principles designed to foster robust interaction between innovators and diverse stakeholders to address complex issues like intellectual property, market competition, and equitable access.
Advancing: Principles that prioritize and incentivize the development of QT applications that serve desirable societal goals and the common good.

This layered approach, spanning technical, ethical, and socio-legal considerations, provides a navigational aid for researchers, funders, policymakers, and industry leaders, offering both an "issue spotter" to identify potential challenges and a "compass" to guide the technology's trajectory.

The Authors of the Nature Publication on Responsible Quantum Technology

The Nature article is a product of deep interdisciplinary expertise, authored by three leading figures at the Stanford Center for Responsible Quantum Technology:

Urs Gasser is a distinguished Professor at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), where he is Dean of the TUM School of Social Sciences and Technology. A Fellow at the Stanford RQT Center, he was previously the Executive Director of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. His research focuses on the societal and regulatory implications of emerging technologies, bringing a wealth of experience in technology law and policy.

Eline De Jong is a Dutch philosopher and ethicist serving as a Fellow at the Stanford RQT Center. She is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Amsterdam, specializing in the philosophy and ethics of quantum technology. Her background includes advising the Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy on the societal impact of AI, providing a deep understanding of the co-evolution of technology and society.

Mauritz Kop, the Founding Director of the Stanford RQT Center and the article's senior and corresponding author, is a tech lawyer, policy advisor, and academic whose work focuses on creating sui generis governance frameworks for exponential technologies like AI and quantum. His scholarship, published by leading institutions globally, aims to integrate risk management, regulatory compliance, and safety standards directly into the innovation process.

This collaboration between legal, policy, and ethics scholars underscores the article's central message: ensuring a responsible quantum future requires a concerted, interdisciplinary, and international effort. As the manifesto for the Stanford Center for RQT, Nature’s "A Call for Responsible Quantum Technology" is a foundational text, setting a clear and principled agenda for the global quantum community.

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Harvard Petrie-Flom publishes EU and US Regulatory Challenges Facing AI Health Care Innovator Firms

Harvard Law School's Petrie-Flom Center has published EU and US Regulatory Challenges Facing AI Health Care Innovator Firms on its Bill of Health blog—an op-ed co-written by lead author Suzan Slijpen, Mauritz Kop (Founder of the Stanford Center for Responsible Quantum Technology), and senior author I. Glenn Cohen, who directs the Center. It examines why firms building artificial intelligence for medicine face such a tangled compliance map, and what a better one might look like.

Two regulatory philosophies, one transatlantic market

The piece sets Europe's cross-sectoral instinct against America's sectoral one. An AI medical product entering the EU must answer to the Medical Device Regulation, the GDPR, and a sweeping digital rulebook that now includes the EU AI Act and the coming European Health Data Space. In the United States, by contrast, coverage is patchy by design: HIPAA reaches only certain entities and data, and the FDA regulates medical AI only where it fits an existing category. Each model has genuine merits and genuine blind spots, and a firm selling on both shores must satisfy both at once.

Where the law strains hardest

The authors are clearest on the cases that resist tidy rules. Adaptive algorithms that keep learning after deployment make it hard to say when a model has changed enough to need fresh review—an area where the FDA's 2023 predetermined-change-control guidance points a constructive way forward. Generative AI overtook the EU AI Act mid-negotiation, unsettling how foundation models are treated under a rulebook drafted before they arrived. And at the material frontier sit quantum- and AI-driven devices, with their export controls, fragile supply chains, dual-use questions, and intellectual-property and security concerns—the bridge from this op-ed to Kop's broader work on the quantum technology governance frontier. The lesson the authors draw is procedural as much as substantive: regulators must understand the tempo of the technology they govern, or risk writing rules that are obsolete before they bind.

Toward a workable middle ground

Rather than crowning a winner, the authors propose a mixed horizontal-vertical approach: keep the precautionary care for patient safety, keep the permissionless capacity to innovate, and tailor the result to the economic realities of health care—from clinical-trial costs to market licenses. Regulation that is sensible, practical, and sector-specific, they argue, serves innovators and patients alike; anything less is rendered ineffective fast. Readers tracking Kop's longer arc on responsible technology can also follow his AIRecht scholar profile, where the through-line from AI in medicine to the law and ethics of the quantum age is laid out across a decade of work.

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Mauritz Kop Reviews Der Derian’s Project Q: War, Peace and Quantum Mechanics

Stanford University, April 1, 2024—In an era defined by rapid technological acceleration, the quantum revolution looms as perhaps the most profound and least understood transformation on the horizon. It is a domain where the esoteric principles of physics—superposition, entanglement, and uncertainty—are migrating from theoretical blackboards to the geopolitical chessboard. It is this critical, and often unsettling, intersection of science, society, and security that James Der Derian’s consequential new documentary, Project Q: War, Peace and Quantum Mechanics, masterfully explores. Having been graciously invited by the film’s producers at Bullfrog Films to review this important work as the Founding Director of the Stanford Center for Responsible Quantum Technology, Mauritz Kop found it to be an essential primer for what may well be the defining technological challenge of the 21st century.

The film serves as a crucial vehicle for fostering what Mauritz Kop calls ‘quantum literacy’—a foundational understanding of not just the science, but the societal, ethical, and political ramifications of quantum technologies, and their inherent dual-use nature. Der Derian, a distinguished scholar of international relations and director of the Centre for International Security Studies at the University of Sydney, is uniquely positioned to guide this inquiry. He eschews a purely technical exposition, instead weaving a narrative that brings together a diverse chorus of voices: leading physicists, philosophers, national security experts, artists, and historians. This multidisciplinary approach is the film’s greatest strength, transforming a subject that could easily be arcane and inaccessible into a deeply human and urgent conversation.

A Summary of the Film: The Quantum Conundrum

Project Q dives headfirst into the rapidly advancing world of quantum science, highlighting the massive investments by governments, corporations, and universities while probing the unanswered questions about humankind's quantum future. The documentary skillfully unpacks the foundational elements of quantum mechanics for a lay audience. It introduces concepts like complementarity, Niels Bohr’s principle that objects can exhibit contradictory properties, such as being both a wave and a particle, but not simultaneously. It visualizes superposition through the famous Schrödinger's cat analogy, where a particle—or a cat in a box—can exist in multiple states at once until the moment it is observed.

Project Q in Sydney: A Conclave for the Quantum Age

The documentary is inextricably linked to the real-world initiative from which it takes its name. Project Q, based at the University of Sydney, is an ambitious undertaking to bridge the gap between the scientists building the quantum future and the humanists, policymakers, and public who will inhabit it. A ‘quantum risk lab’'. The project’s home is the Q Station in Sydney, a former quarantine station with a history of isolating and managing existential threats. This setting serves as a poignant backdrop, a physical manifestation of the need to grapple with the potentially world-altering implications of quantum technology before they arrive unchecked.

A Must-Watch Call for Quantum Literacy

Project Q is a documentary of profound importance and timeliness. It is a wake-up call, an invitation to a global conversation that has been largely confined to laboratories and classified government briefings. Der Derian has crafted a film that is both intellectually rigorous and deeply accessible, challenging its audience to think critically about the path we are on. By exploring both the risks and benefits of quantum innovation, the film offers a vital multidisciplinary perspective on how this emerging suite of technologies might reshape global peace, security, and politics.

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Stanford Quantum Incubator Launched at Stanford Law School

Stanford, March 31, 2024—Today, we are thrilled to announce the launch of the Stanford Quantum Incubator (SQI)—a Silicon Valley business catalyst dedicated to advancing quantum technology development and adoption both regionally, nationally, and beyond. Situated at the prestigious Stanford Law School, the Stanford Quantum Incubator stands as a pivotal force, bridging the critical gap between academia and industry to foster an environment ripe for much-needed innovation and economic growth.

Stanford Quantum Incubator: Bridging Academia and Industry

Operating from the center of the emerging quantum startup scene, the Stanford Quantum Incubator will help galvanize and attract startups and university spin-offs in the quantum and AI space. It will also serve as a nexus for the broader investment community—including venture capitalists, angel investors, accelerators, banks, and funds—and other essential stakeholders, from hardware manufacturers to cloud and software providers.

The launch of SQI comes at a pivotal moment for the United States. In the wake of the 2022 Biden Executive Orders on Quantum, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the 2023 Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence, the imperative to cultivate a competitive and responsible quantum ecosystem has never been more pronounced. These government directives are accelerating investment in quantum information science (QIS) and catalyzing a host of new opportunities for public-private collaboration. It is essential that the quantum community capitalizes on this momentum.

We start the Stanford Quantum Incubator at a time when groundbreaking innovations in second-generation quantum technologies are making their way from the lab into the markets. These advancements span quantum computing, cryptography, sensing, simulation, and networking, with transformative applications in sectors such as Life Sciences and Healthcare, Finance, Cybersecurity, Manufacturing, Logistics, Automotive, Defense, and Space.

Inaugural Stanford SQI Fellows Bring a Wealth of Venture Capital Expertise

The success of this ambitious endeavor is anchored by the wisdom and experience of its leadership and advisors. The Stanford Quantum Incubator is honored to introduce its inaugural Fellows, a group of distinguished leaders from the worlds of venture capital, technology, and cybersecurity. The SQI team consists of Fellows Bradley Horowitz, David Hornik, Greg Berkin, and SQI Founding Director Mauritz Kop

A Catalyst for Responsible Quantum Innovation

Building on decades of combined entrepreneurial experience, SQI will develop a comprehensive suite of student/founder mentorship and support services designed to propel startups and scale-ups to success. Guidance will span sustainable business models, legal compliance, performance benchmarking, intellectual property portfolio optimization, and technology transfer. The incubator will directly address the multifaceted ethical, legal, societal, and policy challenges (Quantum-ELSPI) inherent in developing quantum hardware, software, and quantum-classical hybrids.

Central to SQI’s mission is a profound commitment to collaboration. Operating within a quadruple helix model that unites academics, industry professionals, policymakers, and end-users, SQI is positioned to become the epicenter of forward-looking, exponential quantum innovation. To this end, plans are underway to host a recurring networking workshop, in partnership with respected VC tech incubators, to both operationalize the Responsible Quantum Technology (RQT) framework and foster a globally leading, values-based quantum ecosystem.

SQI Networking Event at Stanford Law

The inaugural SQI Networking Event at Stanford Law School is set for November 1, 2024. This workshop aims to establish a local, values-based quantum network that aligns with the RQT framework, positioning the Bay Area at the heart of quantum advancement. The event promises to be an exclusive gathering, featuring presentations from luminaries in the field, startup pitches, and ample opportunities for networking. By encouraging investment and deal flow, this process will amplify responsible quantum technology development, with a clear goal of producing multiple quantum unicorns by 2030.

As we stand on the cusp of the Quantum Age, the Stanford Quantum Incubator invites the broader Silicon Valley innovation cluster to join in this pioneering, interdisciplinary endeavor. A quality-labeled ‘Quantum Made in US’ paradigm, infused with AI and quantum talent and a culture of boundless possibility, can help American companies become leaders in making scalable quantum applications that create real business value and benefit society. By facilitating university-market collaboration, SQI is poised to be an effective catalyst for leadership in the imminent quantum revolution.

For those eager to contribute to and participate in this exciting venture, we encourage you to reach out to Mauritz Kop, Founding Director of the Stanford Center for RQT, for more information. Together, we can unlock the boundless potential of quantum technology and AI, creating a future that benefits us all.

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Innovation, Quantum Technology, Stanford RQT, Venture CapitalMauritz Kop31 maart 2024Stanford Quantum Incubator, Venture Capital, Stanford Law School, Responsible Quantum Innovation, Greg Berkin, Bradley Horowitz, David Hornik, Mauritz Kop, Startups, Ethical Investing

Quantum Trials: An FDA for Quantum Technology

What if the United States regulated emerging quantum technology the way it regulates new medicines? That is the provocation at the center of Quantum Trials: An FDA for Quantum Technology, a Stanford Law School working paper by Alexandra Waldherr, I. Glenn Cohen, and Mauritz Kop, posted as a preprint and first presented at the 2023 Stanford Responsible Quantum Technology Conference. The paper proposes a phased, documentation-driven pipeline for second-generation quantum technology, modeled on the FDA's clinical-trials regime.

A phased pipeline for quantum

The framework maps the FDA's four stages onto quantum research and development. Phase I captures a theoretical idea or laboratory proof-of-concept in a concise technical one-pager; Phase II adds a proof-of-principle validation with an ethical checklist; Phase III is a confirmatory stage whose findings are condensed into a Summary of Quantum Characteristics for regulatory assessment; and Phase IV follows the authorized technology through its public lifecycle, with failure reports and audits. Throughout, "efficacy" is reread as technical innovation and "safety" as the absence of unresolved ethical and legal concerns. A binding registry ties the phases together, serving regulators, engineers, educators, and the public from one shared record.

SEA TURTLE and the registry-first first step

Over the phases sits the SEA TURTLE checklist—a six-point barometer distilling the Ten Principles for Responsible Quantum Innovation and the broader Responsible Quantum Technology paradigm into a quick test of whether a technology is both innovative and responsibly developed. Its "SEA" element names a commitment to Safeguarding, Engaging, and Advancing quantum technology, society, and humankind. The authors are realistic about the political capital a full "FDA for Quantum" would demand, so they single out one immediate, low-cost step: making the registration of quantum developments mandatory by law, in the spirit of the legislation that produced clinicaltrials.gov. A standardized registry, they argue, gives regulators the evidence they need to balance underregulation against overregulation.

Why the analogy matters for governance

The deeper argument is structural. A young, dual-use, exponentially developing field is better served by an evidence-generating, phased pipeline than by either premature prohibition or laissez-faire. The same logic animates the authors' work on law, ethics, and policy of quantum and AI in healthcare and the ethics of biomedical discovery in Hippocratic Quantum. The paper does not claim the drug-approval analogy is settled; it invites the physics community to test its feasibility and the legislative branch to adopt, evaluate, and refine it. As an opening move in the design of quantum-specific regulatory institutions, it is less a verdict than a carefully argued invitation.

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Quantum Technology, Healthcare, ReguleringHenry Quentir12 maart 2024Mauritz Kop, Quantum Technology, Quantum Governance, Regulation, Policy, Healthcare, Ethics, Stanford RQT, I. Glenn Cohen, Quantum Trials, FDA, Clinical Trials, SEA TURTLE, Medical Devices, Alexandra Waldherr

Stanford Law’s Mauritz Kop advises UK Regulatory Horizons Council on Regulating Quantum Technology Applications

London, UK, February 28, 2024— The global race to harness the transformative potential of quantum technology is well underway. As nations position themselves at the forefront of this scientific and industrial revolution, the United Kingdom has taken a decisive step to not only lead in innovation but also in the thoughtful development of its regulatory landscape. A key milestone in this journey is the recent report on "Regulating Quantum Technology Applications" by the UK's Regulatory Horizons Council (RHC). It was an honour for Mauritz Kop to contribute to this important and timely work, and this post will delve into the background, his advisory role, and how scholarship from the Stanford Program in Law, Science and Technology (LST) directed by Professor Mark Lemley has helped shape the UK's pro-innovation approach to quantum governance.

Centre for Science and Policy’s Expert Network at the University of Cambridge

On August 8, 2023, Mauritz Kop, Visiting 'Quantum & Law' Scholar at Stanford University, had the honour of advising the UK's Regulatory Horizons Council, an expert committee that counsels the government on regulatory reform for emerging technologies. In his discussion with Tom Newby (Policy Fellow, Centre for Science and Policy at the University of Cambridge) of the RHC, Kop advocated for a pro-innovation regulatory framework—one that fosters growth and attracts investment while proactively addressing societal risks. He is delighted to see that his recommendations and overall vision of regulating quantum have been significantly reflected in the final report, which will now directly inform the UK's national quantum policy.

This engagement builds upon a foundation of extensive scholarship, including his work within the Cambridge University network and, most notably, research at the imminent Stanford Center for Responsible Quantum Technology. Its publications, such as the "10 Principles for Responsible Quantum Innovation" and "Regulating Transformative Technology in The Quantum Age: Intellectual Property, Standardization & Sustainable Innovation," have provided a robust intellectual framework for the very challenges the RHC was tasked to address.

A Pro-Innovation and Responsible Approach to Regulating Quantum & AI

His advice to the RHC was guided by the core vision of the imminent Stanford Center for Responsible Quantum Technology: to foster a regulatory environment that is enabling, not stifling. A pro-innovation framework, as he argued, is crucial for attracting domestic and international talent and investment. Innovators and investors are drawn to jurisdictions that offer regulatory clarity and a commitment to responsible development. By establishing such an environment, the UK can position itself as a premier destination for the burgeoning quantum industry.

The RHC report embraces this philosophy. It explicitly rejects a one-size-fits-all regulatory model and instead advocates for a nuanced, application-specific approach. Recognizing that quantum technologies are at varying stages of development, the report wisely suggests that the timing and nature of regulatory interventions should be carefully calibrated. This aligns with the view that governance should be agile and adaptive, evolving in step with the technology itself.

The Influence of the "10 Principles for Responsible Quantum Innovation" on UK Quantum Governance

Kop was particularly pleased to see the RHC report explicitly reference and incorporate the "10 Principles for Responsible Quantum Innovation." This framework, developed by Kop’s interdisciplinary team at Stanford Law School, is the culmination of interdisciplinary collaboration aimed at providing actionable guidance for policymakers, innovators, and other stakeholders in the quantum ecosystem.

The Path Forward: A New Model for Tech Governance

The collaboration between the Stanford Center for Responsible Quantum Technology and the UK's Regulatory Horizons Council exemplifies a new and promising model for technology governance. As we stand on the cusp of a quantum revolution, it is imperative that we move beyond the reactive regulatory postures of the past. The development of transformative technologies requires proactive and thoughtful engagement from all stakeholders, and academia has a crucial role to play in providing the intellectual frameworks and evidence-based analysis needed to inform sound policymaking.

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Governance, Government, Quantum Technology, Stanford RQTMauritz Kop28 februari 2024Government Advocacy, Quantum, United Kingdom, Pro-Innovation Regulation, Cambridge University, Stanford Law, Mark Lemley, Mauritz Kop, Quantum Governance

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