Professor David Tan

Overview

Professor David Tan is the Co-Director of the Centre for Technology, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence & the Law, and Head (Intellectual Property) at the EW Barker Centre for Law & Business at the Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore (NUS Law). He was Vice Dean (Academic Affairs) for over 6 years and was the first holder of the Dean’s Chair there. He has obtained PhD, LLB (First Class Hons) and BCom degrees from the University of Melbourne and an LLM from Harvard.

David pioneered the courses Entertainment Law, Fashion Law, Freedom of Speech, and Privacy and Data Protection Law at NUS Law. He has also taught as a visitor at Tsinghua Law School, University of Tokyo, University of Hong Kong and King's College London. He taught Constitutional Law at Melbourne Law School in 2007 and has been regularly offering Intellectual Property & Popular Culture as a JD-intensive since 2014. His areas of research cover personality rights, copyright, trademarks, freedom of expression and tort law. He has published over 100 books, articles, book chapters and commentaries, and his law publications have appeared in a wide range of journals that include Yale Journal of International Law, Harvard Journal of Sports & Entertainment Law, Media & Arts Law Review, Law and Literature, Sydney Law Review and Law Quarterly Review. His book on celebrity image rights titled “The Commercial Appropriation of Fame” was published by Cambridge University Press (CUP) in 2017, and his edited book "Fashion and Intellectual Property" was also published by CUP in 2025.

In addition, David is an accomplished fine art and fashion photographer whose works have appeared in Vanity Fair, Harper’s Bazaar, Elle and Marie Claire. He has had a number of solo exhibitions, with the most iconic ones being “Tainted Perfection” presented by Cartier and “Visions of Beauty” in collaboration with Versace.