Nataliia Bulat
Fellow 2025/2026
Law
Odesa I. I. Mechnikov National University
Open Society University Network/CEU Institute of Advanced Study, Budapest-Ukraine
natalia_bulat@ukr.net
Bio
Dr. Nataliia Bulat is an Associate Professor at the Department of Civil Law Disciplines, Faculty of Economics and Law, and the Head of the Department of Academic Mobility and Grant Support at the Centre of International Education at Odesa I. I. Mechnikov National University (Ukraine).
She obtained her PhD degree in Law in 2022, with a thesis titled ‘Domain Names in the System of Intellectual Property Objects’. Her main research field is intellectual property law and IT. Since beginning her academic career in 2017, Nataliia has authored more than 40 publications, including articles in journals indexed by Scopus and/or the Web of Science Core Collection.
Nataliia has served as a reviewer for the Journal of World Intellectual Property (John Wiley & Sons Ltd) and the International Journal of Law and Information Technology (Oxford University Press).
She has extensive international experience in teaching, research, and training. In particular, Nataliia was employed as a lecturer at Vilnius University (Lithuania). She was also a guest professor at the University of Antwerp (FWO Programme), a visiting lecturer at Subotica Tech College of Applied Sciences (Erasmus+ Programme), a visiting lecturer and researcher at Comenius University Bratislava (SAIA Programme), a visiting researcher at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (DAAD Programme), a visiting lecturer at the University of Santiago de Compostela (Erasmus+ Programme), a visiting researcher at Jagiellonian University in Kraków (Coimbra Scholarship Programme), a visiting lecturer at Atatürk University (Erasmus+ Programme), and a visiting researcher at Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel. Additionally, Nataliia has completed training programmes at the Silesian University of Technology, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Pisa University, Freie Universität Berlin, Osmaniye Korkut Ata University, West University of Timișoara, Sivas Cumhuriyet University, Granada University, and Atatürk University.
Nataliia is a member of the World Intellectual Property Organization Alternative Dispute Resolution Young (WIPO ADR Young) and the Regional Technology and Innovation Support Center at Odesa I. I. Mechnikov National University.
AI-Generated Innovations: Can and Should Patent Law Protect AI Outputs?
The increasing popularity of generative AI leads to challenges for intellectual property (IP) law, such as how legislation should treat AI-generated objects and how to protect them. Currently, some jurisdictions provide legislative mechanisms for regulating AI-generated objects within the framework of copyright and/or design law. For example, the UK, Ireland, Hong Kong, New Zealand, India, South Africa, and Ukraine protect AI-generated objects by copyright law. In addition, the UK, Ireland, and Hong Kong provide protection for AI-generated designs. Regarding the treatment of AI outputs by patent law, it is worth mentioning the DABUS case which raised the question in different jurisdictions whether AI can be identified as an inventor. In most cases, IP offices answered this question in the negative, and further court proceedings confirmed the requirement of human inventorship. The current project aims to analyze whether AI-generated outputs can and should be protected, and whether the level of human contribution required for now in the inventive process – when AI is involved – is sufficient to protect the outputs within the existing patent law paradigm.