AI, IP & the Dark Secret Nobody Talks About

Patent attorney with 30 years in IP law across Asia. Born and raised in the US, spent 10 years in Japan, 4 years in Beijing, and 15+ years in Hong Kong. Experience both in-house and at IP firms, covering patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets. Works with IIPCC (iipcc.org) on intellectual property strategy and compliance.

Chapters

1. 0:00Intro — How Aug met Michael through the Berkeley group
2. 3:01Meet Michael Lin — patent attorney turned HK fixture
3. 3:50IP is the dark secret of AI
4. 5:25Copyright & AI training data — who owns what?
5. 6:07Music IP disputes & the gray areas
6. 8:30Can you copyright a chord? Beethoven vs. the island musician
7. 10:46Painting styles, Van Gogh & derivative works
8. 11:55New laws allowing royalty-free AI training
9. 12:11Practical advice — know your rights as a creator
10. 15:06Trade secrets — the genesis of all IP
11. 16:36Coca-Cola's vault & keeping your secret
12. 16:50Brainstorming with AI — who owns the output?
13. 18:10Feeding ideas to the cloud — the leakage risk
14. 19:47Social capital & attribution as the new IP
15. 21:15Open source business models — Red Hat, Mozilla & Linux
16. 22:25Claude Code, AI agents & running around naked
17. 26:36Michael's next chapter — NGOs, health tech & philanthropy
18. 28:27Curing children's cancer & IP financing for SMEs
19. 32:02Michael — always the last to leave the party
20. 32:39IIPCC Shanghai event — Belt and Road IP education
21. 36:44Hong Kong AI Lab — mentoring 60+ AI startups per cohort
22. 37:16Legal tech's data problem — law firms won't share
23. 39:54East vs West AI strategy — agents vs general LLMs
24. 41:00The Namibia bird bath — a parable about data pollution
25. 43:41Paying for quality data & the return of curation
26. 45:51Taste, apprenticeships & what AI can't teach you
27. 48:07The practice of law — why you can't learn it from books
28. 51:29Why patent attorneys are the happiest lawyers
29. 53:43Trade secrets vs patents — when NOT to patent
30. 54:21Fragrance IP — Chanel No. 5 & skin chemistry
31. 56:03Singing bowls & the things you can't patent
32. 58:05Leveraging ambiguity as competitive advantage
33. 58:10Coca-Cola vs Pepsi vs Karma Cola — the great debate
34. 61:01Looking for space sponsors & co-working partners
35. 61:48Michael's full org rundown — IIPCC, LES, Wang Foundation & more

About This Episode

AI and intellectual property — it's the question everyone runs into eventually. We dig into copyright vs. training data, trade secrets as a practical alternative to patents, music IP disputes, and what Hong Kong's regulatory landscape means for AI builders.