Economic regulation and the AI Act: perspectives from competition law, data protection, and intellectual property

This article explores the interaction of the AI Act with different residually applicable systems of economic regulation, namely the competition laws, the intellectual property laws, and the data protection laws, from an institutional and substantive perspective. Conflicts between the AI Act and these areas of residual economic regulation are inevitable. The AI Act provides little to no guidance to the question of how to resolve substantive and institutional conflicts. After discussing the general rules applicable to the interaction between economic regulation in EU law, I examine the impact of the AI Act from the three distinct perspectives of competition law, data protection, and intellectual property law. I find that the AI Act is likely to affect the enforcement of both the AI Act and the three areas of law to differing degrees in light of previous jurisprudence of the European courts.