Maximiliano Santa Cruz

Maximiliano Santa Cruz is a leading Chilean intellectual property practitioner with expertise across the full IP system. Rather than treating individual rights in isolation, he designs coordinated strategies for the ownership, protection, enforcement and commercialisation of intangible assets. His practice spans trade mark and patent prosecution and litigation; copyright and digital content; industrial designs; trade secrets and know-how; domain names and unfair competition; technology and licensing agreements; technology transfer; patentability, freedom-to-operate and landscape studies; IP audits, due diligence and regional portfolio management; and matters involving software, personal data and emerging technologies. He also advises and writes on the legal and policy implications of artificial intelligence, including ownership, training data, AI-generated content, transparency and risk allocation.

He is frequently retained to prepare formal legal opinions and expert reports for complex IP, unfair competition and technology disputes. He advises on cross-border mandates involving companies, research institutions, governments and international organisations. Combining detailed knowledge of Chilean law with international experience in innovation, competition, trade and public policy, he determines not merely which right is available, but which combination of rights, contracts and business measures will best protect an innovation, creative output, brand or technology.

Maximiliano, founding partner of Santa Cruz IP, has over 25 years' experience in IP, international trade and innovation policy. His career combines private practice, public service, bilateral and multilateral negotiation and academia. He has taught IP at Universidad de Chile and Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, is a frequent speaker at IP conferences, and is regularly consulted on drafting IP legislation.

From 2009 to 2018, he was founding Director General of INAPI, Chile's IP office, across four administrations. He led its modernisation, digitisation and telework; launched Chile's National Strategy on Industrial Property; initiated and championed the comprehensive reform of the Industrial Property Law enacted in 2021; and promoted Chile's accession to the Madrid Protocol. He played a leading role in Chile's accession to the PCT, secured INAPI's designation as a PCT International Authority (ISA/IPEA) and helped create PROSUR, linking 13 Latin American IP offices.

Earlier, at Chile's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and WTO Mission, he led IP negotiations for agreements with the EU, EFTA, Korea and the P4 and participated in negotiations with the United States. He chaired WIPO's patent committee and PCT Working Group for two terms and vice-chaired its trade mark committee. He has advised the World Bank, IDB, WIPO, EUIPO and EPO and was one of three panellists in a WTO dispute concerning IP and technology transfer between the United States and China.

Governance Board Member, Medicines Patent Pool (since 2021).

Board Member, Cambia/The Lens (since 2020).

Board Member, Center for Technological Revolution in Creative Industries (CRTIC).

Former Chair, Medicines Patent Pool Expert Advisory Group (2011-2020).

Former Member, Presidential Advisory Council for State Modernisation (2021-2022).

Former Member, Academic Council, Smart IP for Latin America, an initiative of the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition.

Member, Chilean Council for Foresight and Strategy.

Selected publications include: “The Evolution of Unfair Competition in Chile: Foundations, Enforcement Experience and Significance vis-à-vis Intellectual Property Rights” (with Pilar Trivelli), in Competition Policy and Intellectual Property in Today's Global Economy (Cambridge University Press, 2021); “IP in the TPP: How Far Beyond the Existing FTAs Does It Go?” (with Denisse Pérez Fierro), in The Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership: Analysis and Commentary (Cambridge University Press, 2021); “The Twenty-First Century Intellectual Property Office” (with Catalina Olivos), in Intellectual Property and Development: Understanding the Interfaces (Springer, 2019); and Los derechos de propiedad intelectual en los acuerdos de libre comercio celebrados por países de América Latina con países desarrollados (with Pedro Roffe, UN ECLAC, 2006).

He regularly publishes opinion and analysis in Diario Financiero, La Tercera and specialised outlets on intellectual property, innovation, technology transfer, artificial intelligence and public health. His writing on AI examines its interaction with copyright, patents, trade secrets, data protection, licensing and innovation policy.

Maximiliano advises Chilean and international companies, investors, start-ups, research institutions, universities, public bodies, international organisations, creators, museums, foundations and other cultural organisations. His clients operate across technology, financial services, life sciences, media, music, consumer goods, agriculture, architecture, engineering, sports and the creative industries. He is also retained by in-house legal teams and law firms for complex legal opinions, regional IP strategies and cross-border matters. His work ranges from helping emerging ventures establish ownership and protection from the outset to advising established corporations and public-sector institutions on sophisticated disputes, transactions, portfolios and policy questions.

Maximiliano holds a law degree from Universidad de Chile (1999) and an LL.M. in International Transactions and Comparative Law, with a concentration in Intellectual Property, from the University of San Francisco, California (2002). Since 2010, he has taught intellectual property, innovation and technology regulation in programmes at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Universidad de Chile, Universidad del Desarrollo and Universidad Finis Terrae. His academic work reflects the same systems-based approach as his practice, connecting intellectual property with innovation, international trade, public policy and economic development. He is a frequent speaker at national and international conferences and regularly contributes to public debate on the future of IP. He is based in Santiago and works in Spanish and English.

Selected recent work demonstrates the breadth of his practice:

• Leading trade mark protection and portfolio strategy for a global investment manager across ten Latin American jurisdictions, coordinating local counsel, prosecution and portfolio consistency.

• Advising an international music-sector organisation on copyright, streaming, licensing, performers' and producers' rights and collective rights management.

• Preparing complex legal opinions for a major financial institution and other sophisticated clients on copyright, trade marks, unfair competition, infringement and technology-related disputes.

• Designing integrated patent, trade secret, contractual and technology-transfer strategies for biotechnology, healthcare and medical-research initiatives, including confidentiality, research and material-transfer agreements.

• Advising technology and software businesses on ownership of developments, IP audits, licensing, artificial intelligence, data and know-how.

• Advising governments and international organisations on IP-office modernisation, accession to international registration systems and policies connecting IP, innovation, research and productive development.

Maximiliano has worked at every level of the intellectual property system: advising private clients; leading a national IP office; negotiating treaties and international standards; serving on a WTO panel and chairing WIPO bodies; advising governments and multilateral institutions; and teaching law, innovation and technology transfer. This breadth enables him to move between detailed legal analysis and broader commercial, institutional and public-policy considerations.

His experience covers the full lifecycle of intangible assets, from ownership, registration and portfolio design to licensing, commercialisation, technology transfer, enforcement and disputes. It also encompasses legislative reform, treaty accession, IP-office modernisation and national innovation policy. He is particularly experienced in matters requiring several IP rights, contracts and regulatory regimes to be combined into a coherent strategy.

Universidad de Chile

Law Degree

1990 - 1995

University of San Francisco, School of Law, California

LL.M. in International Transactions and Comparative Law, with a concentration in Intellectual Property

2001 - 2002

Maximiliano's principal differentiator is his systems-level understanding of intellectual property. Having helped negotiate, design, administer, teach and apply IP rules, he can evaluate a matter from the perspectives of rights holders, users, regulators, investors, licensees, creators and the public interest.

In technology and R&D-intensive sectors, he combines patent strategy, freedom-to-operate, trade secrets, copyright, software protection, data protection, research agreements, licensing and technology transfer. In media and the creative industries, he integrates copyright, trade marks, designs, digital content, collective rights management, contracts and commercialisation. In life sciences and healthcare, he brings together patent strategy, public-health considerations, regulatory issues, access to technology and international licensing. For financial institutions, consumer-facing businesses and regional portfolios, he combines brand protection, enforcement, contracting, data and risk management.

His experience in government and international organisations also enables him to advise on institutional design, treaty implementation and policies connecting intellectual property with research, investment, competition, culture and productive development.

Chile; Latin America (cross-border IP strategy and portfolio coordination); and international intellectual property and trade law, including WIPO, WTO, WHO frameworks, the PCT and the Madrid System.