Professor Aplin’s research lies in the field of intellectual property law. She has published extensively on how digital technologies are regulated by copyright law at an international, European and UK level, e.g. see Copyright law in the digital society: the challenges of multimedia (Hart: 2005) and T Aplin (ed) Research Handbook on Intellectual Property and Digital Technologies (Elgar: 2020). She has also published on copyright exceptions: see her co-authored a monograph with Prof. Bently Global Mandatory Fair Use: The Nature and Scope of the Right to Quote Copyright Works (CUP, 2020).

Professor Aplin's research also focuses on the protection of trade secrets and confidential information in the UK, Commonwealth jurisdictions and the EU.  She has co-authored one of the leading texts in this field (see Gurry on Confidence: The Protection of Confidential Information OUP, 2012). She has also published extensively on how fundamental rights may affect trade secrets and privacy protection, how trade secrets operate in the data economy and on the overlap between patents and trade secrets.

Professor Aplin is co-author of two leading Intellectual Property Law textbooks: Intellectual Property Law: Text, Cases and Materials 4th ed (OUP, 2021) and Intellectual Property: Patents, Copyright, Trade Marks and Allied Rights 10th ed (Sweet & Maxwell, 2023).

 Her ongoing research interests include EU trade secret policy and protection; UK protection of confidential information; AI and trade secrets; the role of intention in intellectual property law; and copyright exceptions.

Teaching expertise

• Intellectual Property Law
• Patents
• Trade Secrets
• Comparative Copyright Law
• AI & IP Law
• Contract & Tort

Ph D

Professor Aplin welcomes applications from potential Ph D students in areas of her research expertise.

IP and new technologies, role of IP in cultural production; trade secrets and the data economy

Professor Aplin specialises in the area of Intellectual Property Law, having joined the Dickson Poon School of Law in September 2002 as a Lecturer. She was previously a Lecturer in Law at Robinson College, Cambridge (2000-2002), and a Research Fellow at Murdoch University (1997-1999). Professor Aplin graduated from Murdoch University, Western Australia with LLB and BA degrees (1994) and from the University of Oxford with a BCL (1997) and D Phil (2002). She has been a visiting scholar at Boalt School of Law, UCB (2006); a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the TC Beirne School of Law, University of Queensland (2009); Visiting Fellow at the School of Law, University of New South Wales (2009, 2013, 2014), a Senior Fellow at Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne (2013) and Global Distinguished Professor at the University of Notre Dame (2023- ). Professor Aplin has also been a visiting lecturer on numerous law programmes, including those offered by the IP Academy Singapore, Pepperdine School of Law, Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, Melbourne Law School, Turin Law School, Paris II, College de droit and Jean Moulin University Lyon III. She was formerly Head of Education in the School of Law (2008-2012) and Vice-Dean (Research) (2016-2021) and is presently Director of the LLM in Intellectual Property and Information Law, Director of the King’s Postgraduate Diploma/MA in UK, EU and US Copyright Law and Interim Vice-Dean (Research) (Jan 2025- ). In 2015 and 2017 she was the recipient of the Law School's Supervisory Excellence Award and has been nominated multiple times for King's Teaching Excellence Awards.