Brian McElligott

Partner & Head of AI, Mason Hayes & Curran LLP

Brian is a Partner in our Technology Law team and is Head of our Artificial Intelligence team. He has an undergraduate degree in Theoretical Physics from Trinity College Dublin. Brian re-joined Mason Hayes & Curran in January of 2023 having spent time in-house as Chief Intellectual Property counsel with an Irish AI fintech start-up. During that time, he gained significant experience in operationalising and commercialising AI platforms and solutions. He led AI invention harvesting and international patent and trademark portfolio filing projects and was part a team of software engineers and data scientists that conceived and developed a bespoke inhouse software invention and R&D tagging tool. He headed up the internal AI Ethics Council dedicated to producing ethical AI products for the company.

Prior to working in-house, Brian was a Partner in our Intellectual Property team. He is a proven results-driven and collaborative leader able to navigate complex technology and intellectual property issues in a fast-paced environment. His experience includes M&A transactions, negotiating strategic partnerships, overseeing AI asset management, and regulatory compliance.

Contributed to

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Ireland—Artificial intelligence—intellectual property

Practice Notes

This Practice Note considers the current Irish intellectual property law framework governing artificial intelligence (AI) (or machine learning) in Ireland. First, it explains what AI is before providing an overview of the key pieces of IP law that apply to AI and in particular it considers the issues concerning IP rights in AI inputs (eg training data), the AI system itself and AI outputs.

Ireland - Commercial