LL.D. Ulla-Maija Mylly is currently Academy Research Fellow at University of Turku, faculty of law. She was a TIAS postdoctoral collegium researcher at the Turku Institute of Advanced Studies 2017-2019. She did her first LL.M. at University of Turku and the second at Kyushu University, Japan (International Trade and Business Law). Ulla-Maija has earlier worked among others in various research positions at the Turku School of Economics, Hanken School of Economics (Helsinki) and as a practicing lawyer. She is trained on the bench. August 2017 – July 2018 she was a Visiting Research Fellow at Oxford Intellectual Property Research Center. 

Ulla-Maija’s LL.D.- thesis discussed IP protection of computer program interfaces and interoperability. She analysed, among others, the extent to which TRIPS provisions allow exceptions for interoperability and compulsory licensing. Her TIAS project: "General Concepts and Principles of Copyright for the Digital Era" analyzed international IP agreements and EU law instruments and (non)- flexibility they produce in the regulation of digital copyright. Her research interest within the IP covers copyright, patent law and trade secrets, but she has published research related to the fundamental rights as well. Her research analyses connecting (and non-connecting) concepts and exceptions within trade secret and other IP and how these are applied. Mylly’s research interest lies on the underlying justifications for the regimes in question and potential differences these produce for interpretations.

During the Academy of Finland funding period (2021-2026) Mylly will dissect the ambivalent nature of European trade secret protection between the intellectual property and unfair competition paradigms from the perspective of data-driven economy. The research will analyse ways to interpret the provisions of the Trade Secrets Directive in a manner that would be most suitable for the data-driven economy and to the needs of competition and innovation. Research utilises comparative materials from the US, Japan and the UK. 

Ulla-Maija is responsible teacher for the course “Comparative Trade Secret Law”.