Tim W. Dornis, J.S.M. (Stanford), Attorney-at-law (New York)

Tim W. Dornis holds the Chair of Private Law and Intellectual Property Law. His research covers doctrinal, comparative, and interdisciplinary questions of private law, intellectual property, and competition law with a special focus on the regulation of artificial intelligence.

He studied law and economics in Germany (Tübingen, Dr. iur. 2004) and in the United States at Columbia University (LL.M. 2003, James Kent Scholar) and at Stanford Law School (J.S.M. 2009, SPILS Fellow). In 2011, he also was a Hauser Global Fellow at New York University School of Law. Before becoming a law professor in 2012, Professor Dornis spent several years practicing in an international law firm and as a tenured judge in Germany. His post-doctoral habilitation thesis (University of Zurich, Switzerland) has been published by Cambridge University Press under the title Trademark and Unfair Competition Conflicts: Historical-Comparative, Doctrinal, and Economic Perspectives as part of the publisher’s Intellectual Property and Information Law Series. (Download (open access) from Cambridge University Press.)

Since 2015, Tim Dornis has been a visiting professor at the Università di Verona. In 2018, he has been appointed Global Professor of Law at the NYU Law in Paris program. Since 2021, he also is a honorary professor at University of Zurich. Professor Dornis is admitted to practice law in New York (USA) and is a member of the German-American Lawyers’ Association, the German Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property (GRUR), and the Association for Comparative Law (Gesellschaft für Rechtsvergleichung e.V.).

Professor Dornis‘ research focus is on intellectual property law, international and European private law as well as comparative law and law & economics. Particular attention is paid to the regulation of AI.

Among his key publications are:

• Trademark and Unfair Competition Conflicts: Historical-Comparative, Doctrinal, and Economic Perspectives, Cambridge Intellectual Property and Information Law Series, Bently & Cornish eds., Cambridge University Press 2017 (696 pages), open access on Cambridge CORE (post-doc habilitation thesis).
• Trademarks, Comparative Advertising, and Product Imitations: An Untold Story of Law and Economics, 121 Penn State Law Review (Penn State L. Rev.) 421-470 (2016) (co-authored with Thomas Wein).
• Behind the Steele Curtain – An Empirical Study of Trademark Conflicts Cases, 1952-2016, 20 Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law (Vand. J. Ent. & Tech. L.) 567-653 (2018).
• Wigmorian Copyright: Law, Economics, and Socio-Cultural Evolution, Intellectual Property Quarterly (IPQ) 2018, 159-180.
• Standard-Essential Patents and FRAND Licensing – At the Crossroads of Economic Theory and Legal Practice, Journal of European Competition Law & Practice (J. Eur. Comp. L. & Pract.) vol. 11 (2020), 575-591.
• Artificial Creativity: Emergent Works and the Void in Current IP Law, 22 Yale Journal of Law & Technology (Yale J. L. & Tech.) 2020, pp. 1-60.
• Artificial Intelligence and Innovation: The End of Patent Law As We Know It, 23 Yale Journal of Law & Technology (Yale J. L. & Tech.) 2020, pp. 97-159.
• Of “Authorless Works“ and “Inventions without Inventor” – The Muddy Waters of “AI Autonomy” in Intellectual Property Doctrine, European Intellectual Property Review (E.I.P.R.) 2021, 570-585.
• Künstliche Intelligenz und internationaler Vertragsschluss, Rabels Zeitschrift für ausländisches und internationales Privatrecht (RabelsZ), ca. 20 pages, forthcoming 2023.
• Künstliche Intelligenz und Vertragsschluss, Archiv für die civilistische Praxis (AcP), ca. 30 pages, forthcoming 2023.