Bengt Domeij – a professor with a passion for the technical dimensions of intellectual property law

For him, the move was a return to the legal field – but never a departure from technology. The combination of these two areas has followed him throughout his career and also shapes his latest book, Immaterialrätten: Sverige och EU (Intellectual Property Law: Sweden and the EU), a new textbook in the field.

Intellectual property law – with copyright, patents, trademarks, and design as its main pillars – is an area where technical, economic, and legal perspectives must meet. For Domeij, it is precisely this intersection between technology and law that makes the field so compelling. He attended a four‑year technical programme in upper‑secondary school and worked for a year as an engineer before beginning his law studies. His interest in technological development led him to doctoral studies and a dissertation on pharmaceutical patents, which he completed in 1998.

Teaching law students about intellectual property often means encouraging them to think beyond statutes and case law. Domeij emphasises the importance of understanding a client’s technical and business context – something that may not always feel natural for students early in their education. Yet he argues that this is essential. Intellectual property law is not a self‑contained legal island; it evolves in close interaction with innovation, business, and creative processes.

This becomes especially clear in today’s most widely debated IP issue: artificial intelligence. The major AI models have been trained on vast amounts of text, images, music, and video – often material protected by copyright. Court cases are currently underway in several countries, where publishers, image agencies, and music organisations claim that their works have been used without permission. Domeij sees parallels to earlier technological shifts, where new actors initially “just get on with it” and questions of rights come later – much like when Napster and other file‑sharing services transformed the music market long before legislation caught up.

He now also uses AI as a tool in teaching. When students had long struggled to visualise a sneaker at the centre of a design‑infringement case, he asked an image‑generating model to create an illustration based on the court’s textual description. In the autumn of 2025, students saw the result – perhaps an example of how technology can support legal education rather than threaten it.

Everyday examples – from IKEA furniture resembling expensive design originals to small inventors whose ideas are overtaken by larger companies – also highlight the complexity of intellectual property law. For Domeij, these cases are reminders of how difficult it is to create fair systems for something as elusive as creativity and ideas. At the same time, he is fascinated by the mere fact that the legal system attempts it: that a person who creates something new should have the opportunity to receive recognition and protection for their work, even in a global digital world.

At the faculty, Bengt Domeij is the only scholar primarily focused on intellectual property law, though he teaches alongside colleagues in marketing and competition law. Many students choose him as their thesis supervisor – a sign of both the appeal of the subject and his pedagogical engagement.

With his technical background, broad research experience, and interest in current societal issues, Domeij continues to demonstrate why intellectual property law is one of the most dynamic and challenging fields in the legal landscape.