The webinar began with a welcome address from Dr Ivan Tot (ELI Croatian Hub Co-Chair; Assistant Professor at the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Economics and Business) who introduced the speaker and the topic.

Following the introduction, Albert Ruda (Associate Professor in Private Law and Dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Girona; ELI Spanish Hub Co-Chair; ELI Global Private Law SIG Co-Chair) delivered a speech on ‘The Immaterial in the Law: Towards a Paradigm Shift?’.

The lecture dealt with the question of whether traditional property law rules are well prepared to face the new challenges posed by the appearance of immaterial goods as an autonomous and heterogenous category of goods. Different options for legislators were discussed: (a) ignore the problem; (b) expand the existing definitions of things and traditional property rights to include immaterial goods in their vast variety of manifestations; or (c) enact a new set of property rules specifically aimed at immaterial goods. Comparative law examples were given from German, French, and Portuguese property law. The lecture particularly highlighted the approach taken by ELI in its current ‘Access to Digital Assets’ project.

The presentation was followed by a Q&A session.

The next ELI Croatian Hub webinar will be held on 17 December 2021.