Intellectual property (IP) rights governance and related value mechanisms in Common European Data Spaces

Common European Data Spaces (CEDS) are EU initiatives aimed at establishing secure, trustworthy, and multi-stakeholder data ecosystems in strategic sectors and domains to enable controlled access, sharing, and re-use of data. This article adopts a doctrinal and policy-oriented approach to examine the legal challenges of operationalising data sovereignty in CEDS through the governance of intellectual property (IP) rights. It analyses the intersections between relevant international and EU IP regimes-on copyright, the sui generis database right, trade secrets, and patents-and the EU data acquis, in particular the Data Act and the European Health Data Space Regulation. The article posits that adequate and effective protection of IP rights are crucial in CEDS, which require legal and governance frameworks that ensure fair balance between facilitating legitimate data access and re-use by downstream data users, while safeguarding the IP rights and incentives of data holders. The argument critiques the introduction of mandatory access regimes in the EU data acquis, which provide calibrated exceptions, limitations, or delegations of control to public authorities, thereby adjusting the exercise of IP rights enshrined in other international and EU legal instruments. It highlights concerns that the lack of clarity regarding the interplay between various IP regimes risks legal uncertainty and trust erosion. In addition to legislative fine-tuning, the article recommends the adoption of IP frameworks that incorporate FRAND terms, NDAs, advanced (AI and distributed ledger) technologies, and that build on multi-stakeholder governance structures to facilitate clear, incentivising and socioeconomically fair IP governance and related value mechanisms in CEDS.