In 2017 CUHK LAW, with partner institutions at the University of Cologne, Germany, and Jilin University, PRC, have embarked on a collaborative research project exploring the cutting-edge topic “Big Data and Courts in China”. As a collaborative research project which leading academics and practitioners from various jurisdictions have joined, the project seeks to offer fresh insights by adopting empirical, comparative and interdisciplinary methods. CUHK LAW Professor Chao Xi has co-edited a special issue of The China Review, a leading peer-reviewed journal in the area of China studies, titled Data-Driven Approaches to Studying Chinese Judicial Practice. Three international conferences of this collaborative research project have been hosted in the cities of Hong Kong, Changchun, and Cologne in 2017, 2018 and 2019, respectively. The 2020 conference has been re-scheduled to take place in 2021 at CUHK LAW. 

On 28-29 November 2019 a conference co-organized by CUHK LAW, the Applied Research Centre for Intellectual Assets and the Law (“ARCIALA”) at the School of Law, Singapore Management University (SMU), and the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition (Munich) was held at SMU School of Law. Under the leadership of Professor Jyh-An Lee the conference brought together a group of legal and technology experts from Asia, Europe, and the United States. Conference participants discussed the latest developments and the newest ideas associated with AI and different categories of IP, i.e. copyright, patents, and trade marks from various perspectives, such as law, economics, computer science, history, and innovation policy. Professor Lee’s co-edited book Artificial Intelligence and Intellectual Property was published by Oxford University Press in 2021. Professor Lutz-Christian Wolff’s article, Artificial Intelligence ante portas: The End of Comparative Law?, published by The Chinese Journal of Comparative Law (OUP) in February 2020 was listed amongst The Best of 2020 Law Journals from Oxford University Press.

Professor Stuart Hargreaves and Professor Normann Witzleb work amongst other things on the impact of new technology on and the interaction with data privacy. Professor Hargreaves’s publications include Who Decides What is ‘Personal Data’? Utilizing the Access Principle with Telecommunications and Internet Providers in Hong Kong” (with L. Tsui), 13 International Journal of Communication (2019), 1684; IP Addresses as Personal Data Under Hong Kong’s Privacy Law: An Introduction to the Access My Info HK Project (with L. Tsui), 25(2) Journal of Law, Information, & Science (2017); Data Protection Regimes, in Anglim (ed.), Privacy Rights in the Digital Age, (New York: Grey House Publishing, Inc., 2016). Professor Normann Witzleb’s co-edited book (with M. Paterson & J. Richardson) on Big Data, Political Campaigning and the Law: Democracy and Privacy in the Age of Micro-Targeting, was published by Routledge in 2020.

The Legal Implications of the Platform Economy Workshop II co-hosted by CUHK LAW, the University of Hong Kong (HKU) Faculty of Law, and the City University of Hong Kong School of Law was held on 16 September 2019 at CUHK Graduate Law Centre. This workshop was one of the two events on law and the platform economy project funded under the Eurasia-Pacific Uninet (EPU) program in Austria, in which Professor Jyh-An Lee was a co-investigator. Workshop I had been held in Danube-University Krems Austria on 24 June 2019, followed by the Workshop II at CUHK LAW. Distinguished researchers from Asia and Europe joined CUHK LAW Professors Sandra Marco Colino, Stuart Hargreaves, Robin Huang, Jyh-An Lee, and PhD student Ms. Songyin Bo for an exchange of research findings and discussions of recent developments.

CUHK LAW has been co-organizing the annual Intellectual Property (IP) Conference with the United States-China Intellectual Property Institute (USCIPI) and the Asian Innovation and IP Society (AIIPS) since 2017. Policymakers, business leaders, prominent practitioners, and distinguished academics discuss issues associated with IP and new technologies, such as artificial intelligence, big data, blockchain, 3D printing, biomedical technologies and pharmaceutical inventions. CUHK LAW faculty members have published widely on IP and technology. For example, Professor Jyh-An Lee has published on the relationships between IP and a wide variety of new technologies, such as digital platforms, big data, communications technologies, pharmaceutical inventions, etc. His recent publications in this field include Shifting IP Battlegrounds in the U.S.-China Trade War, 43 Columbia Journal of Law & the Arts (2020), 147; Tripartite Perspective on the Copyright-Sharing Economy in China, 35 Computer Law & Security Review (2019), 434; Licensing Open Government Data, 13 Hastings Business Law Journal (2017), 207; Implementing the FRAND Standard in China, 19 Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law (2016), 37.

Internet and communications network governance covers a broad range of issues such as domain name dispute resolution, digital censorship and surveillance, cybersecurity, telecommunications law and policy. CUHK LAW Professors Bryan Druzin, Gregory Gordon, Jyh-An Lee, and Sandra Marco Colino have produced impressive output on these topics. Examples are Marco Colino, A History of Competition: The Impact of Antitrust on Hong Kong’s Telecommunications Markets, 29 Fordham Intellectual Property, Media & Entertainment Law Journal (2019), 931; Druzin &; Gordon, Authoritarianism and the Internet, 43 Law & Social Inquiry (2018), 1427; Lee, Hacking into China’s Cybersecurity Law, 53 Wake Forest Law Review (2018), 57; Druzin, Censorship’s Fragile Grip on the Internet: Can Online Speech be Controlled?, 49 Cornell International Law Journal (2016),369; Lee & Liu, Real-Name Registration Rules and the Fading Digital Anonymity in China, 25 Washington International Law Journal (2016), 1.

Professor Bryan Mercurio’s research project on cross-border trade in data is funded by the Policy Innovation and Coordination Office’s scheme for Public Policy Research. The project aims to explore whether it is necessary for Hong Kong to develop a comprehensive data policy in order to assist the territory in realizing its ambition to become a regional fintech hub in addition to the financial and logistical gateway to China, and if so what shape the policy should take. The project, which ran from February 2020 to February 2021, featured several seminars and workshops and aimed to produce an issues paper, edited collection and final recommendation report.

Professor Kevin Cheng, Dr. Natasha Pushkarna, and Ms. Sayaka Ri designed a sentencing calculator based off their published research Judicial Disparity, Deviation, and Departures from Sentencing Guidelines: The Case for Hong Kong, 17(3) Journal of Empirical Legal Studies (2020) 580. Sentencing guidelines are set out for drug trafficking by the Hong Kong Court of Appeal where a range of sentence is provided based on the range of the quantity of drugs—e.g. 50 to 200g of cocaine = 96 to 144 months of imprisonment. Observing the continued existence of judicial disparity in sentences for drug trafficking despite these guidelines, they devised a calculation from drug tariffs to estimate the sentence based on the exact quantity of drugs. That formula offers an accurate starting point for judges to use when determining a sentence for a drug trafficking offence. For ease of use of this formula, they developed an online calculator which allows for fast determination of the arithmetically derived sentence starting point for Trafficking in Dangerous Drugs offences where users select the drug type and input the quantity of drugs. It also calculates the sentence after sentence discounts for guilty pleas. You can find the calculator here:
https://www.law.cuhk.edu.hk/app/sentencecalculator