Dr Alina Trapova invited to speak at ‘More than Just a Game’ Conference

Dr Alina Trapova, Lecturer at UCL Laws and Co-director of the Institute of Brand and Innovation Law (IBIL) was invited to speak at the More Than Just a Game Conference (MTJG), which took place at The Honourable Society of Lincolns’ Inn on 19 to 21 April.

MTJG is a regular academic-led conference focussing on games and interactive entertainment law, one of the most successful and fastest-growing creative industry. The conference, developed by Dr Gaetano Dimita and his colleagues at QMUL’s Centre for Commercial Law Studies, has taken place regularly since it was first held in 2015. It aims to encourage collaboration between gaming industry creators, legal professionals and academics to discuss current challenges and legal issues which relate to the understanding and protection of interactive entertainment.

This year, the metaverse was the topic under discussion. Building on lessons learnt from the video game industry over the last 20 years, the conference sought to debunk many of the false positives and non-issues so that the conversation could focus on the real gaps, and try to identify whether IP law will underpin the new digital constitution or whether it is more like an afterthought in this rapidly changing environment.

Dr Trapova’s presentation formed part of the ‘Trade Marks & Designs in the Spotlight’ session, which was chaired by Harri Salmi, Member of the EUIPO Second and Third Boards of Appeal. Speaking on trade mark law, Dr Trapova’s talk discussed the territoriality issue of trade marks in the metaverse in the context of both acquired distinctiveness, as well as enforcement from a private international law perspective. She was joined on the panel by David Stone, Deputy High Court Judge and IP Partner at Allen & Overy LLP, and Yaniv Benhamou, Associate Professor in Digital Law at the University of Geneva.

Speaking after the event, Dr Trapova commented: 'The only way that we can make sense of any legal issues in the metaverse and gaming is to hold more events of this kind where different perspectives come together. Some issues are old and pose no new challenges, but there are still several others that will disrupt the IP system as we know it – territoriality in IPRs is certainly one of them.'

Find out more about the conference here.

Photo credit: Gary Schwartz 2023