The Department of Law, North South University (NSU) celebrated "World Intellectual Property Day" with a seminar on contemporary intellectual property (IP) law on April 30. The keynote speaker for this session was Prof. Niloufer Selvadurai from Macquarie Law School, who joined virtually. The featured speakers included Advocate Saquib Rahman, Senior Lecturer, Department of Law, NSU, and Mahua Zahur, Director, Center for Learning Intellectual Property (CLIP).

Prof. Abdul Hannan Chowdhury, Vice-Chancellor, NSU, chaired the session. The Special Guest was Prof. Abdur Rob Khan, Treasurer and Pro Vice-Chancellor (IC), NSU. Faculty members and students from the Department of Law attended the session.

Prof. Selvadurai spoke on the topic "The IP Issue of Our Era – Patent Protection For AI-Generated Inventions", where she discussed the issues surrounding whether AI shall be acknowledged as an inventor in patent law. She further analysed statutory reforms in the context of using personal pronouns to exclude AI inventors.

Mahua Zahur spoke on the topic "IP and Music: An Assessment of the Prospects of the Music Industry in Light of the Copyright Act, 2023". Her speech highlighted the work done in public domains and the protection of folkloric works, while also criticising the inadequate security measures for audiovisual performers.

Advocate Saquib Rahman spoke on "Dilution by Blurring: Bangladesh's Ignorance". He described why dilution-by-blurring is a conceptually difficult area of trademark law, and that the courts in Bangladesh have not recognised blurring as of yet, concluding that the concept's inclusion in the Trademark Act of 2009 is a crying need.

Dr Ishtiaque Ahmed, Associate Professor and Chairman, Department of Law, delivered the introductory remarks, where he expressed gratitude to the distinguished guests for gracing the occasion with their presence and the continuous evolution of IP law in the legal and social context.

Prof. Md Rizwanul Islam, Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences and Professor, Department of Law, observed that Bangladesh should not view the protection of intellectual property from a binary point of view, which entails protecting the interest of foreign intellectual property rights holders at the expense of the consumers of Bangladesh. He opined that Bangladesh should emphasise enforcing intellectual property rights, inter alia, to encourage creativity and attract foreign investment.

The Session Chair, Prof. Abdul Hannan Chowdhury, recognised the valuable insights surrounding IP law from the seminar. Prof. Abdur Rob Khan acknowledged the Department of Law for organising such an academic event.