Alina Trapova

Alina Trapova

Of Counsel

At Linkedin
  • Intellectual property law (trademarks, copyright, designs, trade secrets, publicity/image rights, unfair competition) 
  • Videogames and interactive entertainment
  • Esports and digital entertainment (audiovisuals and music)
  • Information technology (ecommerce platforms, ISP regulation and liability) 
  • Emerging digital technologies (AI and Big Data)
  • Fashion and art law
  • Bulgarian (mother tongue)
  • English
  • Italian
  • German
  • Turkish
  • Spanish
  • Russian

Alina completed her undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in the UK. She has specialised in the field of intellectual property law, with a focus on trademarks and copyright law. Before starting her academic career, she has worked at the international federation representing the recording industry (IFPI), the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), as well as at an international law firm.

Since 2019, she has been teaching intellectual property law to both law and non-law students at Bocconi University in Milan, where she is completing a doctorate degree with a research project on artificial intelligence and copyright authorship. At Bocconi, she also co-teaches the affiliate CopyrightX course under the auspices of Harvard Law School. Since 2019, she has been coordinating Bocconi’s LL.M. program in European Business and Social Law. Alina also teaches intellectual property law to fashion and design students at Milano Fashion Institute and Accademia del Lusso.

She won several awards and fellowships during her career, including a fellowship for a Visiting Researcher Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition in Munich and first price at the Law & Tech competition by the European Center for Law, Science and New Technologies at the University of Pavia with a project on “Identifying the human in the loop: machine learning and copyright authorship”.

She regularly speaks at international conferences on topics in the field of intellectual property law and also frequently authors publications in international journals.

  • Academic activity
    • Lecturer (Bocconi University, Milan, 2019-today)
    • Teaching Assistant (Bocconi University, Milan, 2017-2019)
    • Co-editor, COVID blog in Social Sciences, Bocconi Crisis Lab (Bocconi University, Milan, since 2020)
    • External Expert, Boards of Appeal (EUIPO, Alicante, Spain, 2020)
    • Research Assistant (Art, Science and Knowledge Research Centre (ASK), Bocconi University, Milan, 2020)
    • Rapporteur, Comparative Study on Specialised Ukrainian IP Court, Centre for Commercial Law Studies (Queen Mary University of London, UK, 2020)
  • Institutional roles
    • Coordinator, LL.M. in European Business and Social Law (Bocconi University, Milan, since 2020)
  • Degrees and diplomas
    • LL.M., Intellectual Property Law (Queen Mary University of London, UK, 2015)
    • LL.B., European and International Law (The University of Sheffield, UK, 2014)
  • ‘US and EU: Diverging or Intertwined Paths?’, in O. Pollicino, G.M. Riccio and M. Bassini, Copyright versus (other) fundamental rights in the digital age. A comparative analysis in search of a common constitutional ground, Edward Elgar, 2020 (with Maria Lillà Montagnani)
  • ‘Aren’t we all exhausted already? EU copyright exhaustion and video game resales in the Games-as-a-Service era’, Interactive Entertainment Law Review, Volume 3, Issue 2, 2020, Pages 77-93, https://doi.org (with Emanuele Fava)
  • ‘Limiting liability for trade mark infringement online: the CJEU further clarifies the scope of ‘trade mark use’, Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice, 2020, https://doi.org
  • ‘Reviving Collective Management: Will CMOs Become the True Mediators They Ought to Be in the Digital Single Market?’ European Intellectual Property Review, Volume 42, Issue 5, 2020, Pages 272-280
  • ‘Copyright and Human Rights in the Ballroom: A Minuet between the US and the EU’, Mitchell Hamline Law Review, Volume 46, 2020, Pages 613-654, https://open.mitchellhamline.edu/ (with Maria Lillà Montagnani)
  • ‘The misconstrued notion of consent in EU trade mark law’, Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice, Volume 14, Issue 2, 2019, Pages 136-143, https://doi.org
  • ‘New Obligations for Internet Intermediaries in the Digital Single Market — Safe Harbors in Turmoil?’, Journal of Internet Law, Volume 22, Issue 7, 2019, Pages 3-11, http://dx.doi.org (with Maria Lillà Montagnani)
  • ‘Safe Harbours in Deep Waters: A New Emerging Liability Regime for Internet Intermediaries in the Digital Single Market’, International Journal of Law and Information Technology, Volume 26, Issue 4, 2018, Pages 294–310, https://doi.org (with Maria Lillà Montagnani)