On 3 February 2025, the European Commission (“EC”) published an updated version of its frequently asked questions (“FAQs”) on the EU Data Act.[1]  The Data Act, which is intended to make data more accessible to users of IoT devices in the EU, entered into force on 11 January 2024 and will become generally applicable as of 12 September 2025.

On 5 September  2024, the EU, UK and US joined seven other states[1] in signing the Council of Europe Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law (“Treaty”) – the first international treaty governing the safe use of artificial intelligence (‘‘AI’’).[2] The Treaty remains subject to ratification, acceptance or approval by each signatory and will enter into force on the first day of the month following a period of three months after the date on which five signatories, including at least three Council of Europe member states, have ratified it. Any state worldwide is eligible to join the Treaty, subject to the unanimous approval of the signatories, and to commit to complying with its provisions. The Treaty is expected to have a positive impact on international cooperation on addressing AI-related risks.

On 2 July, the French data protection supervisory authority – Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL) – launched a new public consultation on the development of AI systems. The public consultation is on (i) a new series of how-to sheets aimed at providing clarifications and recommendations with respect to seven issues related to the development of AI and data protection and (ii) a questionnaire on applying the GDPR to AI models trained with personal data. Below we set out a summary of the main takeaways.

1. Background: three years of legislative debate

Today, on July 12, 2024, EU Regulation No. 1689/2024 laying down harmonized rules on Artificial Intelligence (“Regulation” or “AI Act”) was finally published in the EU Official Journal and will enter into force on August 1, 2024.  This milestone is the culmination of three years of legislative debate since the EU Commission’s first proposal for a comprehensive EU regulation on AI in April 2021. [1]

This third part of our four-part series on using synthetic data to train AI models explores the interplay between synthetic data training sets, the EU Copyright Directive and the forthcoming EU AI Act.

On 9 December 2023, trilogue negotiations on the EU’s Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) Act reached a key inflection point, with a provisional political agreement reached between the European Parliament and Council.  As we wait for the consolidated legislative text to be finalised and formally approved, below we set out the key points businesses need to know about the political deal and what comes next.

On 27 April 2023, the European Commission (the “Commission”) proposed a new regulation on the licensing of standard essential patents (the “Proposal”).[1]  The objective of the Proposal is to facilitate standard essential patent (“SEP”) licensing negotiations by providing clarity on several aspects: transparency as to who owns SEPs and which SEPs are essential; transparency on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (“FRAND”) terms and conditions; and dispute resolution for the determination of FRAND terms.[2]  

What You Need To Know

  1. From 1 June 2023, a new EU unitary patent system (UPS) will become fully effective. A unitary patent (UP) is a European patent granted by the European Patent Office (EPO) to which, at the patent owner’s request, unitary effect is given for the territory of the EU Member States that have ratified the Unified Patent Court Agreement – currently, 17 EU Member States. UPs give patent owners uniform protection across participating EU Member States, removing the need for national validation procedures as well as individual national enforcement in each EU Member State.