We kindly invite you to a lecture by dr. Leanne Wiseman, entitled “Between Humans and Machines”, which will take place as part of Tuesday Meetings on Tuesday 16 June 2026, at 11.00 am in the library of the Institute of Criminology at the Faculty of Law, Ljubljana.
Since the rise of embedded software in the many smart devices, machines and equipment that consumer, businesses and industries now use and rely upon, intellectual property (IP) has caused an important but hidden shift in the relationship that we, as machine owners and users, have with the manufacturers of our devices, and therefore the machines and devices themselves.
It is this shift that this presentation will focus on and what the Right to Repair movement has rightly identified as the ‘end of ownership’. This is where we see the challenges posed by IP, and particularly copyright, to the Right to Repair.
The IP barriers to repairing the things we own not only limits consumer autonomy and impacts markets but also undermines individual’s human rights and their ability to participate in society. The new stakeholder groups, entities and industries experiencing this overreach of IP have emerged from unexpected quarters but, like the traditionally recognised IP user groups, they have an interest in resisting the continued and unbated expansion of IP in everything and everywhere.
While their concerns of the far-reaching consequences of IP overreach are being largely ignored by regulators, it is important to critically unpack and highlight this dimension of the growing social, economic and environmental complexities of human–machine dependencies.
Leanne Wiseman is an Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellow and Professor in Intellectual Property Law at Griffith University, Brisbane Australia. She is also Chair of the Australian Repair Network.
Leanne is an interdisciplinary scholar whose research lies at the intersections of intellectual property (IP) law and digital technologies. Leanne’s research focuses on the intersection between IP and new technologies, with particular attention to balancing IP rights with genuine access to information. Leanne’s current research focuses on the broad range of regulatory and policy responses to the International Right to Repair movement, by examining the role that IP can play in hindering or enabling access to new digital products and technologies. Leanne’s research engages with communities, businesses and industries who are experiencing the economic, environmental and social impacts of IP policy and regulation.
