CIPIL Directors
Professor David Erdos (Co-Director) (on Sabbatical Michaelmas and Lent Terms 2026/27)
BA (Oxford), LLB (London), MA PhD (Princeton) CIPIL
Director; University Associate Professor in Law & the Open Society and WYNG Fellow in Law, Trinity Hall
David Erdos is Co-Director of the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law (CIPIL) and Professor in Law and the Open Society in the Faculty of Law and also WYNG Fellow in Law at Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge. Before joining Cambridge in October 2013, David spent six years as a research fellow at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, Faculty of Law and Balliol College, University of Oxford.
David’s current research explores the nature of Data Protection especially as it intersects with the right to privacy, freedom of expression, freedom of information and freedom of research. In addition, David continues to have a research interest in bill of rights and related constitutional developments, especially in the UK and other ‘Westminster’ democracies.
David’s Data Protection and the Open Society project has developed arguments about the nature, substance and operation of the law by drawing on rigorous comparative empirical analysis using both quantitative and qualitative methods. This analysis, which draws on his background in both law and political science, has demonstrated that in terms of the application of Data Protection law to journalism, literature and the arts, large differences continue to be apparent between European Union countries. Moreover, such differences appear to reflect broader fissures in legal culture. Anglo and Germanic jurisdictions have tended to insulate journalism from Data Protection, whilst the law of Latin and East European jurisdictions stipulate onerous Data Protection standards even in this sensitive field. A strict approach here is also strongly correlated both with tight restrictions in the cognate fields of social science and biomedical research and with stringent formal Data Protection standards generally. At the doctrinal level, the project has explored, firstly, the difficulties of determining what sort of activities fall within the Data Protection derogation for journalism, art and literature and, more specifically, how Data Protection has affected the flow of information within research – an area where its stipulations are taken relatively seriously.
David’s consolidated research focuses on the origins and impacts of bills of rights especially in the UK and other Westminster-styled democracies (Australia, Canada, New Zealand). This work resulted in a publication of a single-authored OUP monograph, Delegating Rights Protection, in 2010. David’s academic work has received funding from a range of sources including the British Academy, Council of Europe, Economic and Social Research Council, European Union and Leverhulme Trust.
Professor Henning Grosse Ruse-Khan (Co-Director)
Professor Henning Grosse Ruse-Khan is a Fellow of King’s College. In Cambridge, Henning is Co-Director of the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law and a Fellow at the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law.
Henning also holds positions at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition in Munich (Germany) and the Centre for International Sustainable Development Law (McGill University, Montreal). For 2016 and 2017, Henning has been elected as Distinguished Senior Fellow at Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki (Finland).
Henning’s research and teaching focuses on international intellectual property protection and development issues, world trade and investment law, as well as on interfaces amongst legal orders in international law. Next to a recent monograph on international IP protection (OUP, 2016), Henning has published widely in peer-reviewed academic journals, NGO policy papers and research handbooks. He has advised international organisations, NGOs as well as developing- and developed country governments on international IP, WTO and investment law issues and has worked as a legal expert for the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) on IP and development on several occasions.
Henning is member of the editorial board of the International Review of Intellectual Property and Competition Law (IIC) and co-founder of the international IP network of the Society of International Economic Law (SIEL). His research and teaching focuses on international intellectual property protection and development issues, world trade and investment law, as well as on interfaces among distinct legal orders in international law.
He previously worked as a senior research fellow at the Max Planck Institute, as a lecturer in international trade law at the University of Leicester and a research fellow on IT and Media Law at the University of Muenster (Germany). Henning has published widely in peer-reviewed international academic journals, NGO policy papers and research handbooks. He is currently working on a monograph on intellectual property in the wider context of international law, to be published by Oxford University Press.
Henning has also acted as a visiting scholar on WTO-, international trade- and IP law at Universities in Islamabad, Pakistan (2004-2005), Frankfurt, Germany (2007), and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (2011). He has also taught IP and international economic law at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU) and at the International Max Planck Research School for Competition and Innovation (IMPRS CI). In 2011, he was elected as associate fellow at the Centre for International Sustainable Development Law (CISDL, Montreal, Canada) and by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) as visiting scholar for the National Law School in Bangalore, India. He has also advised international organisations, NGOs as well as governments on international IP, WTO and investment law issues.
Professor Lionel Bently (Deputy Director)
Herchel Smith Professor of Intellectual Property Law; Deputy Director of the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law; Professorial Fellow, Emmanuel College, Cambridge.
Barrister (2009, IT), 11 South Square, Gray's Inn, London WC1R 5EY (02074051222).
Born July 2, 1964. B.A. Law 1986 (University of Cambridge). Formerly Lecturer in Law, University of Keele; Professor of Law, King's College, London. Yong Shook Lin Visiting Professor, National University of Singapore (2007) and Visiting Professor of European Law, Columbia University (2008).
Co-author (both with Brad Sherman) of Intellectual Property Law (Oxford, OUP, 2001; 2nd ed, 2004; 3rd ed, 2008; 4th ed, 2014) and The Making of Modern Intellectual Property Law - The British Experience, 1760-1911 (Cambridge: CUP, 1999).
Author of Between a Rock and a Hard Place: The Problems Facing Freelance Creators in the UK Media Market-Place (London: Institute of Employment Rights, 2002).
Co-editor (with David Vaver) of Intellectual Property in the New Millennium: Essays in Honour of Professor William Cornish (Cambridge: CUP, 2004; (with J. Davis and J.C.Ginsburg) Trade Marks and Brands: An Interdisciplinary Critique (Cambridge: CUP 2008); Copyright and Piracy: An Interdisciplinary Critique (Cambridge: CUP, 2010); (with C. Ng and G. D'Agostino) of The Common Law of Intellectual Property: Essays in Honour of David Vaver (Oxford: Hart, 2010); (with R. Deazley & M. Kretschmer) Privilege and Property: Essay on the History of Copyright (Cambridge: OpenBook, 2010); (with T. Aplin, P.Johnson, and S. Malynicz) Gurry on Breach of Confidence: The Protection of Confidential Information, Second Edition (Oxford: OUP, 2012)
Co-director (with Martin Kretschmer), AHRC Resources Enhancement Project, Primary Sources on Copyright (2005-8); (with M. Van Eechoud & J. Gripsrud) of HERA Project on Copyright, Authorship and the Original Work (2010-13) and (with Ian Hargreaves), AHRC Project on Copyright and News in the Digital Environment (2014-16).
Member, ITER, Sophistication vs. Transparency, International Network (2002-5), organised by University of Nijmegen/University of Amsterdam and the Wittem Group of European Copyright Academics Considering a European Copyright Code (2006-2010). Member, AHRB Copyright Network Workshop, organised by Birkbeck College, London (2004-7). Founding Member and Chairman (2015-16), European Copyright Society.
Series Editor, Cambridge Intellectual Property and Information Law; Editorial Board, European Intellectual Property Review and Script-ed, on-line publication, University of Edinburgh.
Member of Copyright Expert Panel, Strategic Advisory Board on IP (2008-10); Founding Member, International Society for the History and Theory of Intellectual Property; Advisory Board, Institute of Brands and Innovation Law, UCL.