Haochen Sun specializes in intellectual property, technology law, and Chinese law. His wide-ranging, interdisciplinary scholarship has explored a variety of cutting-edge areas in law and technology, ranging from the legal status of artificial intelligence creations to access to patented medicines and vaccines, IP rights owners’ responsibilities, and the trademark protection of luxury brands. In his latest research projects, he is developing a new approach to regulating social media algorithms and rethinking the epic transformations that have occurred in China’s intellectual property system.

Haochen’s monograph Technology and the Public Interest, published by Cambridge University Press in 2022, puts forward a new theoretical approach to protecting the right to technology and enforcing technology companies’ fundamental responsibilities. He has also worked on five edited volumes, each of which brings forth new research areas in intellectual property and technology law. For instance, The Luxury Economy and Intellectual Property (Oxford University Press, 2015) pioneers the study of intellectual property protection for luxury goods, and Intellectual Property, COVID-19, and the Next Pandemic: Diagnosing Problems, Developing Cures (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming) presents lessons learned about intellectual property during the COVID-19 pandemic and makes recommendations for retooling intellectual property to better prepare the world for the next pandemic.

An author of over 40 articles and book chapters, Haochen is the winner of a number of research output prizes and major research grants and a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of the Copyright Society of the U.S.A. and Law, Technology, and Humans. He previously served as Director of the Law and Technology Center and LLM Program in Technology and Intellectual Property Law at the HKU Faculty of Law, and has organized numerous international conferences on intellectual property and technology law. Haochen has also delivered public lectures at leading law schools in Asia, Europe, and North America, and has taught intellectual property courses at the University of California Davis School of Law and University of North Carolina School of Law as a Visiting Professor. He served as a Visiting Professor at Columbia Law School in spring 2023.

Haochen has advised leading law firms and companies in the entertainment, information technology, and luxury and fashion sectors on matters relating to intellectual property protection. His opinions about intellectual property and technology law have also appeared in a variety of media outlets, including BBC News, Forbes, Lianhe Zaobao, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, South China Morning Post, Ming Pao, The Wall Street Journal, Shenzhen Satellite TV, and Radio Television Hong Kong.