Ananth Padmanabhan was a 2019 India-U.S. Fellow at New America and a fellow at the Centre for Policy Research. His research interests are in the fields of technology policy, intellectual property rights, and innovation scholarship. He has authored a leading treatise, Intellectual Property Rights: Infringement and Remedies (LexisNexis, 2012), and co-edited an important volume, India as a Pioneer of Innovation (OUP, 2017).
Padmanabhan will be conducting research on privacy in drone systems, exploring the implications of this hugely beneficial technology for personal data, mapping possible harms, and probing the prospects of integrating privacy-enhancing technologies and solutions into various stages of drone design and operations so as to minimize risks and advance privacy interests.
Padmanabhan has critically examined the policy implications of a wide range of technologies and solutions including digital identities, blockchain, civilian drones, gene editing, and electric mobility, with a special focus on ease of innovating in India. His chapter on big data in a forthcoming volume on Regulation in India: Design, Capacity, Performance (Hart Publishing,
2019), is part of a continuing initiative to examine the public law and regulatory dimensions of new technologies. Previously, Padmanabhan worked with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in New Delhi, starting their technology policy research initiatives in India and the Global Technology Summit in Bengaluru, an annual forum for stakeholder conversations on technology policy. He has practiced law in the Madras High Court and taught at several institutions including the National Law University, Jodhpur, and the National Law School of India University, Bengaluru. He holds a master’s degree in law from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and is completing his doctoral thesis on digital copyright at the same institution.