Intellectual Property and Artificial Intelligence
Executive Summary
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has emerged as a general-purpose technology with widespread applications throughout the society and economy. It has a crucial impact on trade worldwide and patterns i.e., creation, distribution, production of goods and services. Artificial Intelligence interconnects Intellectual Property (IP) in numerous places, since one of the main aims of IP policy is to foster innovation and creativity. AI has raised several concerns and open-ended questions in the field of Intellectual Property such as patentability of AI-related inventions, lack of adequate regulations and proprietary issues. In other words, AI questions the most conventional intellectual property principles, such as “creator”, “originality”, “author”, “inventiveness”? This paper seeks to provide insights on inevitable challenges faced because of the interconnection between AI & IP. The paper also attempts to look AI through the narrow lens of India’s copyright and patent regime, to understand the issues that need to be addressed if we are going to embrace it and not collide with it.
Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, Intellectual Property Rights, Patent, Copyright
Research Questions
1. Should IP law allow AI technology to be the author of the copyright application?
2. Should AI inventions that are autonomously generated by AI should be excluded from patent eligibility?
3. Should AI be regulated with existing regulations of computer-assisted inventions?
4. Should IP authorities add specific guidelines, provisions or regulations for AI inventions?
Introduction
The importance of Artificial Intelligence (hereinafter AI) was recognized during World War 2 when the first modern computers began to decode massive breaking machines during the war. John McCarthy who is one of the founders of AI in 1956 realized the need for artificially intelligent machines which could predict and analyze the situation before humans could even interpret and find a solution. It is recently when AI technology has undergone rapid changes and has become one of the hottest trends in the world. Intellectual Property (hereinafter IP) is a flexible and a broad concept that refers to creations of mind that are eligible for protection through law, such as Patents, Copyrights, Trademarks, Industrial Designs etc. IP protects the creations or inventions of owners of the intangible property and gives them an exclusive right over the property. IP is also considered to be a negative right because it restrains everyone else except the owner of the IP to use and exploit the IP. Nowadays, companies are using a blend of patents, trade secrets, open-source agreements to protect their AI-related IP.
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