Vienna (A) The innovation pioneer and head of the Digital Industries Group, Axel Anderl and his two co-heads Alexandra Ciarnau and Patricia Backhausen welcomed more than 70 participants online at the kick-off event of the DORDA Digital Industries Talk series. The event, which was designed to kick off the year, focused on the TECH trends for 2022.

Alexandra Ciarnau, lawyer for IT/IP and data protection and co-head of the Digital Industries Group, highlighted the legal challenges of using artificial intelligence in the different project phases and use cases. Conclusion: “With an understanding of technology, solid legal know-how and foresight, legal hurdles in AI projects – from product design to contract drafting – can be overcome.”, says Alexandra Ciarnau.

In his presentation, Axel Anderl, Head of the Digital Industries Group and Managing Partner at DORDA, dealt with the TECH trend Blockchain. He explained the use of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) and the possibility of property transfers using clear practical examples, for example from the art and real estate sectors, but also the sharing of commodities. The focus was on the question of how the digitization of physical objects can work, where it makes sense and what needs to be regulated. In practice, NFT are increasingly being used. Negligence in the description of the rights associated with ownership repeatedly leads to difficulties in interpretation and disputes.

Patricia Backhausen, lawyer in the M&A team and co-head of the Digital Industries Group at DORDA, focused on Tech M&A Insight, which topics regularly arise when investing in IT companies and how the topics can be contractually cushioned. In summary, Patricia Backhausen states: “Especially open source software, employee inventions and protection against the consequences of ransomware attacks are always a topic in Tech M&A transactions. Here you have to make sure that they are adequately covered in the due diligence and contract negotiations.”

Last but not least, the topic of the Internet of Things (IoT) from the perspective of the new regulations under the Consumer Guarantee Act (VGG) and an overview of current laws and projects, including a cursory presentation of their regulation content and their planned entry into force, should not be missing.

Axel Anderl on the first Digital Industries Talk: “In addition to the already established GDPR Clarity Talks, we will now present our community with the monthly Digital Industries Talks current trends and the most important topics related to IT and digitization. About breaking news from the field of digital Industries Group, we will continue to inform you at the same time via our newsletter and our legal podcast “Clarity Talk on Air”.In this way, we are supplementing our previous offer of regular GDPR Clarity Talks with a structured format for the tech sector.