Dentons’ Warsaw office recently organized the first Drone Day – a conference dedicated to the burning issues around the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) industry, as well as to Drone Law in general. The event was organized under the patronage of the Air Force Institute of Technology and provided an excellent networking opportunity for experts from this cutting-edge sector.

The initiator of the conference, Joanna Wieczorek, Head of the Aviation Law Practice in the Corporate Team in Warsaw, presented on the evolution of Polish and EU regulations on Drone Law. She also discussed numerous examples of the use of drones in commercial services, by both national and international operators. "Until now, the Polish law has allowed the sector to develop freely, also based on the BVLOS (beyond visual line of side) flight regulations. However, due to the growing popularity of drones, the European Union had to unify and harmonize the Aviation Law for drones in every member state," said Joanna Wieczorek. She added that in a few months' time, in July 2020, new, unified regulations for the drones sector will come into force in EU member states. The basic assumptions of the new Drone Law are, among others, flights based on risk analysis, training of all operators, registration of drone users and certification of equipment (CE). "The legislator has outlined the general principles of the new categories of flights. The registration system is changing radically – we will register the owner, not the drone itself, as has been the case so far. The new system will be prepared by the Civil Aviation Authority and perhaps also by the Polish Air Navigation Services Agency. Significant changes will also affect the area of training of drone operators", said Joanna Wieczorek.

Anna Szymańska, managing counsel and head of the Defence and Security practice in the Public Procurement team, presented an innovative public procurement system, which is an important support for commercialization in particular sectors. Dariusz Czuchaj, counsel in the Intellectual Property and New Technologies team, shared Dentons' experience in the field of intellectual property in international technology transactions. Also, dr. Michał Turczyk, partner in the Tax Advisory team and head of the Grants, Incentives for Development and Innovation practice, discussed non-commercial financing opportunities for drone projects.

Apart from Dentons lawyers, the speakers also included representatives of such entities as Polish Armed Forces Group, Leonardo, Airbus, Veolia, Air Force Institute of Technology, Head of Air Traffic Services of the Polish Armed Forces, Polish Air Navigation Agency, FlyTech, Ericsson, Flytronic and Pelixar, who shared their knowledge and perspective.

These key changes for the sector and the discussion on the new Drone Law framework attracted the attention of representatives of key companies from the drones industry, as well as companies that use unmanned drone machines in their business activities.

See the video from the event:

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