“Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play”

Immanuel Kant

Ivo Emanuilov is a practicing lawyer, programmer and ICT expert with over 10 years of international experience as a consultant and legal advisor to major companies in the semiconductor, nanotechnology, smart manufacturing, telecommunications and media domains. He has worked for international law firms, NGOs and research organisations in Bulgaria, Belgium, Switzerland and Sweden.
Ivo has qualifications and experience in computer science, a master’s degree in Intellectual Property Law from KU Leuven, a master’s degree in law from Sofia University , a degree in English Law from Cambridge University. He is currently pursuing BSc Computer Science at the University of London. He is PhD researcher in patent law at KU Leuven where he studies computer-implemented inventions and the role of computational complexity in the assessment of inventive step.
From 2013 to 2016, Ivo was a legal consultant at Penev LLP, Dimitrov, Petrov & Co. and Law & Internet Foundation. In the period 2016-2024, he was an interdisciplinary researcher and consultant in the research team of imec – Centre for Intellectual Property Law and Information Technology at KU Leuven. He is currently a Senior Researcher at Industry Commons Foundation (Sweden) and an Affiliated Researcher at imec – CiTiP in Leuven, as well a senior legal expert at LIBRe Foundation.
Ivo is the founder of I/O Legal, an informal network of experts and a hub of legal, scientific and technological expertise with a focus on providing services in the areas of intellectual property management, digital twins, artificial intelligence and big data.
Ivo is a recognised interdisciplinary researcher at GATE Institute in the field of legal, policy and ethical issues of artificial intelligence and big data. He is the founder of the Experimental Regulation and Digital Policy Lab. His interests include intellectual property management, computer-implemented inventions and artificial intelligence, experimental regulation and regulatory sandboxes, and the contractual and regulatory framework of data spaces.