Papers & Research

The chapter from which this site takes its name. Argues that the "progress" IP law is meant to promote must mean human progress — human self-fulfillment through creative and inventive activity — and proposes a causation-based test for distinguishing works and inventions with a genuine human cause from those without. Engages copyright, patent law, and the philosophical foundations of IP across common law and civil law traditions, drawing on Plato, Aristotle, and Spinoza's conatus to ground the normative claim that human self-realization through art and science is progress, while mere technological change is not.

Introduces the concept of "second-degree" intellectual property: works and inventions produced by AI machines that are themselves built, programmed, and trained by humans, but where there is no human proximate cause for the specific output. Drawing on the causation framework from tort law, the article distinguishes simple "but for" causation — insufficient for IP protection — from proximate causation, which requires a direct causal link between a human creative or inventive act and the output. Argues that machines are not authors and cannot be inventors as a matter of law, that the "if value, then right" trope should be firmly rejected, and that any extension of IP protection to second-degree outputs should require a systematic showing that it would advance human progress.

Examines what kind of human engagement with AI-generated text rises to the level of authorship for copyright purposes. Argues that editing must constitute genuine "collaborative writing" — not mere correction or selection — to satisfy the human cause requirement. Develops a three-tier framework comparing US and EU approaches.

A detailed examination of the authorship requirement in copyright law as applied to AI-generated works. Traces the historical foundations of authorship doctrine, surveys current approaches across major jurisdictions, and argues that granting copyright to machine outputs would undermine the human incentive structure that copyright is designed to support.

Examines how the EU's press publishers' right, introduced in the CDSM Directive, intersects with the use of AI in news production and aggregation. Considers whether automated journalism outputs can qualify for protection and what the press publishers' right can and cannot accomplish in the age of generative AI.

Argues that a legal singularity is underway: for the first time, nonhuman entities not directed by humans may enter the legal system as a new "species" of legal subjects, making the legal system interspecific rather than exclusively human. Using the zero-member LLC as a concrete example — a corporate entity that current law in several US jurisdictions does not prevent an AI from managing entirely autonomously — the article contends that rather than attempting to ban powerful AI, embedding it in legal form offers the better path: it defines targets for legal action, guides AI research toward law-following behavior, and creates a framework for AI governance. Proposes that training AI systems to internalize the spirit of the law, combined with adversarial automated compliance monitoring, offers a route to governing AI agents that may soon outperform humans across a wide range of cognitive tasks.

Using a transdisciplinary methodology drawing on neuroscience, philosophy of mind, moral philosophy, and linguistics, this essay addresses a question courts will increasingly face: what is it that, as a matter of law, differentiates human beings from intelligent machines? The essay argues that "sapience" — the unique way in which reason and emotion interact in the human brain and body, rooted in biological embodiment and moral agency — provides a more useful and legally operationalizable criterion than sentience. Examines cyborgs as an intermediate category, traces existing legal definitions of humanness in abortion law and patent law and finds them insufficient, and proposes a test that asks whether an entity's thinking has both biological and moral aspects characteristic of human sapience. Concludes that, as technology stands, only biological embodiment combined with morally anchored autonomy places an entity on the human side of the definitional line.

Argues that the misalignment between the global reach of AI systems and the territorial structure of national legal systems requires a coordinated transnational regulatory approach. Proposes institutional and normative frameworks drawn from experience with international IP law and other multilateral regulatory regimes.

Provides a detailed analysis of Articles 3 and 4 of the EU Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive, covering text and data mining exceptions and the press publishers' right. Examines the interaction with collective management infrastructure and the challenges posed by AI training data at scale.

A landmark comparative study of the originality requirement in copyright law across major jurisdictions. Traces the divergence between the US "modicum of creativity" standard established in Feist and the "author's own intellectual creation" standard developing in EU law, with implications for how courts distinguish protectable expression from unprotectable information.

Examines the uneasy relationship between IP law and human rights frameworks, arguing that human rights can provide a principled normative foundation for IP protection — one that privileges the interests of human creators — in contrast to the trade-agreement-driven expansion that has characterized international IP law in recent decades.

A monograph developing the philosophical and legal foundations of the argument that law, including intellectual property law, should be oriented toward human progress in the full sense — human flourishing, self-realization, and the expansion of human capacities — rather than toward the maximization of output or economic efficiency alone.