AIPPI IP and GRTK Committee Webinar – Traditional Knowledge between IP and sui generis law
05 June 2026 - 05 June 2026 | Webinar | AIPPI
Why is the topic of Traditional Knowledge crucial today? How to protect cultural heritage? How to mitigate the risk of misappropriation? How to secure communities’ rights? How to stay sustainable?
These are only a few questions we will try to answer during the second of the TK/TCEs webinar series. This time, we will approach the topic from the academic point of view. We will discuss the tools law gives us today, and obstacles we come across in traditional IP system.
We may not find all the right answers, but we sure will dive deep into the subject!
Simona Lavagnini, LGV Avvocati, Italy
Simona Lavagnini is a lawyer admitted to the Supreme Court of Italy and a founding partner of the Milan-based law firm LGV Avvocati. Specialising in industrial and intellectual property law, she earned a PhD in the field and taught ‘Copyright and Advertising Law’ at the University of Pavia for ten years. She regularly publishes in legal journals in both Italian and English and recently edited the commentary on the AI Act’s intellectual property provisions in the Giappichelli 2026 commentary. In 2023, she became president of the Italian Group of the International Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property (AIPPI) and is also a member of other associations, including INTA, LES and ALAI.
Julia Niedźwiecka, Hasik Rheims & Partners, Poland
With legal background, she is a Polish Trademark & Patent Attorney at the Polish Chamber of Patent Attorneys. Her scope of work covers mainly trademarks, designs and unfair competition matters. During her practice she has been assisting clients with prosecution and litigation proceedings before Polish and EU institutions, as well as WIPO.
Julia is vice-chair of IP and GRTK Committee and vice-chair of Young AIPPI Members Committee (YAC) at AIPPI, as well as secretary of Promotion of the Profession Committee at the Polish Chamber of Patent Attorneys. She also gives lectures on “Copyright in photography” at the Association of Polish Photographic Artists.
As of December 2024, Julia has been the chair of Young Members AIPPI Poland.
Harriet Deacon, University of Cape Town, South Africa
Harriet Deacon has a BA (Hons) from the University of Cape Town (1989), a PhD in History (Cambridge, 1994) and a MSc in Management of Intellectual Property (QMUL, 2016). Since 2010, she has been a consultant to UNESCO under the 2003 Intangible Heritage Convention, with a special interest in economic dimensions of heritage safeguarding (ECO-THEMA). She was involved in several research projects exploring the role of intangible heritage in sustainable development in India and Kyrgyzstan (hipams.org) and northern Europe (LIVIND). She has also consulted to WIPO’s Traditional Knowledge Division, including on the Training, Mentoring and Matchmaking Program on Intellectual Property for Women Entrepreneurs from Local Communities 2022-2024. She has published on the Kenya Traditional Knowledge Act, the use of trademarks relating to Sami heritage, and the use of the Traditional Specialties Guaranteed labels for heritage, and has work in press on AI and culture policy in Africa, as Principal Investigator on the British-Academy funded DAIL-ICH Project on digital/AI literacy for community data governance in Africa.
Lily Martinet, French Ministry of Culture, France
Lily Martinet holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from l’École Régionale des Beaux-Arts de Rennes, a law degree with a specialization in international economic law, and a Ph.D. from the Sorbonne Law School. In 2014, she was admitted to the French bar. Her Ph.D. dissertation focused on traditional cultural expressions in international law. From 2018 to 2021, she was a Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for Procedural Law. She has worked on the implementation of the Convention for the safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage for the French National Commission for UNESCO and the French Center for Intangible Cultural Heritage. She is currently an Officer in charge of intangible cultural heritage at the French Ministry of Culture.
Benedetta Ubertazzi, Studio Ubertazzi, Italy
Benedetta is an Intellectual Property lawyer based in Milan and has been recognised by UNESCO as a facilitator for the 2003 Convention on Intangible Cultural Heritage. She has trained and worked with various Italian and international communities that are bearers of cultural, social, and ecological value, including practices such as transhumance, falconry, Lipizzaner horse breeding, and the art of truffle harvesting.
Drawing on pastoral knowledge, biodiversity principles, and sustainable practices embedded in this intangible heritage, she founded a farm based on the “One Health” approach—an integrated model recognising the interconnection between the health of humans, animals, and ecosystems, including textile ecosystems. Her work promotes transdisciplinary collaboration to address global health challenges such as zoonoses, antimicrobial resistance, food security, and climate change, with the aim of sustainably optimising collective wellbeing.
She has also attended and participated in multiple international conferences, the last of which was the “Conference on Culture and Environmental Sustainability 2026 (COCES 2026),” held at Bukhara State University on April 24–25, 2026, for which she received a certificate.