Pascal Pichonnaz is currently full professor (since 2000) for Swiss contract law, Roman law, as well as European consumer law and comparative contract law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Fribourg. He was Dean of the Faculty of Law from 2014–2017. He has been President of the Department of Private Law and vice-president and president of the IBL. He is one of the cofounder of the LLM Programme at the Faculty of Law (MLCBP).

He has published several books, and more than 150 articles, on fundamental aspects of Swiss contract law (including AI and the Law), on Comparative Contract Law, on Set-off and Arbitration, as well as on Roman law, unfair competition and family law. Pichonnaz is also a member of several boards of legal periodicals.

He is a standing member of the Jury of the Premio internazionale di diritto romano Gérard Boulvert and is active as an international commercial arbitrator (ICC, Swiss Rules-SCAI, ad hoc), as well as arbitrator in sport (CAS). He has been member of the board and then president in 2008–2009 of the European Law Faculties Association (ELFA). Since 2018, he has been a member of the Council of the European Law Institute, its vice-president from 2019-2021, and its president from 2021-2023 and 2023-2025. More on www.unifr.ch/ius/pichonnaz

Lecture 1 -  1: AI and the Law: Legal Framework Overview

The goals of this lecture to give a good overview of the various conventions, legislation and legal framework in the EU, but also in various parts of the world.

It will tackle the Council of Europe Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence, which was adopted on 5 September 2024, the European Union AI Act, which will apply from 2 August 2026 in all EU Member States.

We will also examine the Swiss approach, as well as the US Executive Order on Artificial Intelligence, of 23 January 2025, which repealed President Biden Executive Order 14110 of 30 October 2023, on “Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence”.

By addressing these various legal frameworks, we will also tackle commonalities and differences, as a challenge for businesses and innovation.

Lecture 2-3 -  1: AI and the Law: AI EU Act and Global Developments

The goals of these two lectures are to give a good overview over three interesting developments :

• AI and predictive justice

This will force us to reflect on the fundamentals, such as what is AI ?  what is GenAI ? how one should deal with LLMs when their functioning is different from human rational thinking? Are fundamental rights, including Art. 6 ECHR under threat with predictive justice systems ? and what could be their developments? Finally, what could be a good use of algorithm in the justice system?

• AI and algorithmic contracting

Is a contract concluded through AI valid ? If so, to whom should it be attributed ? Are there exceptions to such attributions, and if so based on which risk allocations ? Moreover, how to deal with information duties, conclusion features and so forth.

• AI and product liability of Internet of things

If an algorithm is not working properly, who could be liable ? There is a contractual liability framework, but also an extracontractual framework. For the latter, what are the challenges and how these have been solved by the EU Legislation, and further legislations.

Reading material: to be read before if you are interested into the topic

Richard Susskind, How to Think about AI, A Guid for the Perplexed, Oxford 2025.        (PP/7-2025)

Marco Bassini is an Assistant Professor of Fundamental Rights and Artificial Intelligence at the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology, and Society (TILT), Tilburg University. He teaches, among other courses, Regulation and Governance of AI in the Law and Technology master’s program and Law, Technology, and Society in the Global Law bachelor program. He is also the Principal Investigator of the Dutch-government funded research grant “RetrAIn – Enforcing Constitutional Rights in the Age of Generative Artificial Intelligence” and one of the experts selected by the European AI Office for the drawing-up of the General Purpose AI Code of Practice. He previously served as Adjunct Professor of Constitutional Law and Internet Law at Bocconi University, where he was also the Coordinator of the LLM in Law of Internet Technology from 2020 to 2023. He obtained his PhD in Constitutional Law and European Law from the University of Verona in 2016. A qualified lawyer with the Bar of Milan (Italy) since 2013, Dr. Bassini has over a decade of experience combining academic research with legal practice. He has worked as data protection counsel at international law firms in Milan and Rome, and served as Data Protection Officer for a leading Italian company. In addition, he has advised the Italian Communications Authority and the Italian Ministry for Technological Innovation. His expertise spans data protection law, AI regulation, and media law.

The goal of this module is to provide students with an overview of the most pressing issues raised by the deployment of Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems from a data protection law perspective. After introducing the main features of the European Union legal framework—most notably the General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2016/679)—the lecture will address three core challenges that legislators and data protection authorities currently face:

1. Reconciling data protection principles with the functioning of AI systems, which largely rely on the processing of personal data;
2. Identifying valid legal bases for the processing of personal data occurring in the training, testing, and validation of AI systems, as well as ensuring compliance with the data quality principle;
3. Enforcing data subject rights in relation to automated decision-making and AI-driven processing.

The lecture will cover key concepts such as data controller, data subject, data subject rights, provider, and deployer. However, the focus will be on the legal and practical difficulties in applying and enforcing data protection rules throughout the lifecycle of AI systems. Students are therefore encouraged to skim over the General Data Protection Regulation and the Artificial Intelligence Act ahead of the session to become familiar with the relevant key notions. Also, students are invited to read the following materials:

• Alessia Zornetta and Ignacio Cofone, ‘Artificial Intelligence and the Right to Privacy’, in Jeroen Temperman and Alberto Quintavalla, Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights (Oxford University Press 2023) (available at https://academic.oup.com/oxford-law-pro/book/57647/chapter-abstract/472184799?redirectedFrom=fulltext)
• European Data Protection Board (EDPB), Report of the work undertaken by the ChatGPT Taskforce, 24 May 2024 (available at https://www.edpb.europa.eu/our-work-tools/our-documents/other/report-work-undertaken-chatgpt-taskforce_en)

Daniel Kraus is a professor, attorney (www.patentattorneys.ch/en  and www.vialex.ch) , and deputy judge at the Swiss Federal Patent Court with over three decades of experience in intellectual property, technology, and innovation law. A graduate of the University of Geneva and King’s College London, he earned the Walther Hug Prize for his doctoral thesis on parallel imports of patented products.

Before joining academia, he held senior roles at the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property, leading international affairs and technical cooperation. His expertise spans IP, software law, and AI law, advising on copyright, licensing, open-source compliance, and emerging regulatory frameworks for artificial intelligence.

Daniel is co-author of leading works on blockchain law, trademark, patent, and copyright law, and is a frequent speaker at international conferences. In 2025, Managing IP named him an IP Star in recognition of his contributions to the field.

Outside his legal work, he enjoys composing music, outdoor sports, and social-entrepreneurship projects.

Intellectual Property in the Age of AI

The goal of this module is to provide students with an overview of the key intellectual property (IP) challenges raised by the development and deployment of Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems. After introducing the main IP frameworks relevant to AI—focusing on copyright, patents, trade secrets, and database rights—the lecture will examine three pressing questions currently debated by courts, policymakers, and practitioners:

1. Determining the eligibility of AI-generated works and inventions for copyright and patent protection, and defining the role of human authorship and inventorship;
   ii. Balancing the protection of training datasets and algorithms through copyright, database rights, and trade secrets with the need for transparency, interoperability, and innovation;
   iii. Assessing potential infringement risks in AI training and output generation, including text, image, code, and music creation, and exploring available legal defences and exceptions.

The lecture will cover key IP concepts such as originality, authorship, inventorship, public domain, fair use/fair dealing, and disclosure requirements. The focus will be on the legal and practical difficulties in applying traditional IP rules to AI-driven processes, both at the creation stage (training and development) and at the exploitation stage (commercial use of AI outputs).

Students are encouraged to familiarise themselves with the basic notions of copyright and patent law before the session, and to reflect on how these might apply—or fail to apply—in the context of AI technologies.

Suggested readings (please select one or two):

1. Vanherpe J. Artificial Intelligence and Intellectual Property Law. In: Smuha NA, ed. The Cambridge Handbook of the Law, Ethics and Policy of Artificial Intelligence. Cambridge Law Handbooks. Cambridge University Press; 2025:211-227, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-handbook-of-the-law-ethics-and-policy-of-artificial-intelligence/artificial-intelligence-and-intellectual-property-law/7CEAEB5B630FCABF45DA9B0E9AAE0C3E?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=bookmark

2. Picht, P., Brunner, V., & Schmid, R. (2022/2024). Artificial Intelligence and Intellectual Property Law: From Diagnosis to Action.

Open access: SSRN | https://doi.org/10.5167/uzh-226200

3. Picht, P., et al. (2025). Artificial Intelligence and Intellectual Property: Adapting Legal Frameworks for Innovation.
   Open access: SSRN

4. Tiedrich, L., Perset, K., & Esposito, S. (2025). Intellectual Property Issues in Artificial Intelligence Trained on Scraped Data. OECD Report.
   Open access: https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/intellectual-property-issues-in-artificial-intelligence-trained-on-scraped-data_d5241a23-en.html; Summary: OECD Report PDF
   Additional summary: AILawandPolicy

5. Moerland, A. (2022, revised 2024). Artificial Intelligence and Intellectual Property Law(Cambridge Handbook chapter).
   Open access: SSRN
   Cambridge Handbook chapter abstract: PDF

6. Bharati, D.R. (2024). AI and Intellectual Property: Legal Frameworks and Future Directions.
   Open access: Law Journal Article
   Law Journal archive: link

7. World Intellectual Property Organization (2023–2024). WIPO Publications and Discussions: Generative AI, IP, and Outputs.
   Open access: WIPO Website – Frontier Technologies

8. Policy and Society. (2025). Intellectual Property Rights and Generative AI.
   Open access: Oxford Academic / Policy and Society

Block 1 - AI and the law - how AI is used in legal practice - 9:15-11:00 

• Speakers: Pascale Schwerzmann (Legal Tech Lead & Sr Technical Specialist), Karim Tejani (Head Legal Switzerland), Thomas Spörri,  (Regional Counsel EMEA at Global Deal Team)

• Agenda: The AI Economy, AI Transformation at Microsoft, AI Use Cases for Legal and Law Students, Lessons from Microsoft on how to use AI in Law firms 

• Comment: this will be the non-interactive part of the program - minor changes of the topics may still be possible 

Block 2 - How to build your own agent & agent challenge (interactive session) - 11:00 - 13:00

• Speaker: Thomas Eklund (Technical Specialist)

• Agenda:

• Intro to Copilot and Agents

• Practical exercise with the students - how to build your own agent or AI challenge (e.g. develop a study buddy to prepare for your exams)

• This block is split into a presentation (first part) and an interactive part, where the students can split into groups of approx. 10 people to come up with their own ideas of agents. Thomas Eklund will then select a ideas and explain and showcase (if possible) how such an idea could be developed. Karim, Pascale and I will stay for the session and help with the workshops. 

Block 3 - Prompt engineering challenge - 14:30-16:30

• Speaker: Primo Amrein (AI National Skills Director, Switzerland)

• Agenda:

• Introduction

• Prompt Engineering Hands-on Lab (interactive, laptop required)

• The students will receive a certificate at the end of the session for having participated in this class (Blocks 1 to 3), which they can add to their CVs to highlight their AI skills when applying for jobs. 

Erdem Büyüksagis is an internationally recognized expert in contract law, commercial law and tort law. Professor Büyüksagis is lecturing at Fribourg University in Switzerland. Some of his works were cited by the Swiss Federal Court. In addition to his academic activities, He regularly acts as an arbitrator under the ICC Rules, Swiss Rules, or in ad hoc panels. Professor Büyüksagis holds both Swiss and Turkish citizenship and is a Member of the Swiss Arbitration Association (ASA) and the ICC Turkey.

Some of his publications are:

• Duncan Fairgrieve/Christoph Busch/Erdem Büyüksagis et al., Product Liability and Online Marketplaces: Comparison and Reform, ICLQ 2/2024, pp. 477-504.
• Liability of E-Commerce Platforms for Third-Party Defective Products, in: Eva Maria Belser, Pascal Pichonnaz, Hubert Stöckli (Eds.), Le droit sans frontières - Recht ohne Grenzen - Law without Borders, Mélanges pour Franz Werro, Bern 2022, pp. 127-141.
• The Bounds between Negligence and Strict Liability, in: Mauro Bussani & Anthony J. Sebok (Eds.), Global Tort Law, Edward Elgar Publishing – 2nd ed. Cheltenham 2021, Chapter 10 (with Franz Werro).
• Towards a Transatlantic Concept of Data Privacy, 30 Fordham Intell. Prop. Media & Ent. L.J. 2019, pp. 139-221.

What Europeans Can Learn from an Untold Story of Transjudicial Communication: The Swiss-Turkish Experience, in: Mads Andenas & Duncan Fairgrieve (Eds.), Courts and Comparative Law, Oxford University Press - Oxford 2015, Chapter 37.

This course provides participants with an understanding of the legal, regulatory and ethical issues arising in the context of artificial intelligence with particular interest in the changing domain of legal service delivery. The course explores the ethical and legal dilemmas that exist where human beings, data, and information systems interact. The course introduces students to a variety of legal situations from cross-cultural perspectives and then explores the possible solutions that are suitable for addressing the complex problems in the age of AI, such as the protection of privacy against decisions that are based solely on automated processing, algorithmic pricing and competition, copyright ownership in relation to artificial intelligence, and types of software liability claims.

Students will be able to understand

• the legal significance of the artificially intelligent software and hardware,
• the legal relevance of the use of artificially intelligent software in the private sector,
• the impact of the emergence of artificial intelligence on the application and administration of law in the public sector,
• the importance of artificial intelligence for selected legal fields, including labour law, competition law and health law.

Hence, this course empowers students to integrate AI responsibly within business or public organizations, addressing the challenges head on, and help them to understand the way in which AI is governed and regulated in a comparative perspective. 

• EU AI Act
• The Council of Europe's AI Convention
• Elgar Concise Encyclopedia of Artificial Intelligence and the Law, Cheltenham 2025

Rick Magnan currently serves as the General Counsel, Chief Information Officer, and Chief of Cyber Security for Rising Tide. During his career as a lawyer and computer scientist, he has served in diverse positions in both career fields in private industry, international organizations, and government. He teaches courses involving law and technology, including cyber security, artificial intelligence, and blockchain.

He holds a B.S. in Mathematics and Computer Science from the University of New Hampshire, a M.S. in Computer Systems from the U.S. Air Force Institute of Technology, a J.D. with honors from Georgetown University, and a LL.M. from the University of Fribourg, Switzerland."

The legal and technical requirements for protecting information in networked information technology systems are the central theme. The legal standard of care and the applicable technical measures are examined, as are the related topics of business risk, technology contracts, data privacy, and insurance. The basics of computer internet, and artificial intelligence technology are covered to enhance the lawyer’s ability to collaborate with the IT department and business units. Cyber security frameworks, the use of artificial intelligence in cybersecurity, and data breach cases are examined. The course is designed to be a discussion among all participants.  Additional topics such as software liability, and blockchain can be discussed.