The UK organisation for the business of Open Technology

Dr Margaret Hartnett is a widely published, award-winning, IP expert and Artificial Intelligence researcher and inventor.  

A triply qualified (EU, UK, IE) patent attorney and trademark agent, Dr Hartnett has represented a vast spectrum of clients from SMEs, Universities and the largest tech corporations for almost 25 years.  Unusual for a patent attorney, Dr Hartnett is also a former Director of Legal and Operations of an AI-driven tech company.  In this role, she dealt with the broad range of day-to-day legal issues encountered in tech companies, including open source licensing.  Driven by this experience, Dr Hartnett adopts a pragmatic and holistic perspective of IP usage, wherein she specifically recognises and addresses the importance of open innovation and open-source software to the success and growth of the tech sector.

Coupled with her deep knowledge of IP, Dr Hartnett brings a rare technical pedigree in AI established through her PhD in AI & Analytical Chemistry; and post-doctoral experience in AI & multivariate statistics.  Dr Hartnett also led an award-winning, industrial research project to deliver a first of its kind AI-driven face recognition technology.  She then licensed the technology to leading European banks to support their Know Your Customer/Anti-Money Laundering (KYC/AML) operations.   

As founder of Hartnett Innovations Ltd, Dr Hartnett bridges the gap between the commercial and technology functions of AI-driven businesses to help them address the broad range of IP-related issues.  More recently, as co-founder of Progressio AI Ltd, Dr Hartnett is developing state of the art technology to assist AI providers and AI deployers with meeting their requirements under the EU AI Act and emerging AI regulations and standards further afield.  In this role, Dr Hartnett has widely contributed to Open UK, through:

• Membership of the AI advisory committee
• a case study in the Open UK State of Open: The UK in 2023 – Phase 2, Part 2 report
• a thought leadership article in the Open UK State of Open: The UK in 2024 – Phase 1 report
• a presentation on emerging AI regulation in EU, UK, US and CN at the State of Open conference, February 2024;
• a keynote panel session on AI and Openness at the State of Open conference