Artificial intelligence (AI) is evolving at an ever-faster pace.
New use cases such as autonomous driving, facial recognition or
credit rating assessment are naturally giving rise to new questions
about the legal use of such AI. The legal discussions are
increasingly centred around a phenomenon so far encountered only in
science fiction: What if the AI itself invents new technical
solutions? Who will enjoy the rights to such an invention? Who is
to be regarded as the inventor (considering that "human
inventorship" is an underlying principle of patent protection
in many parts of the world)? And how will we create a balance
between incentivising AI research (by granting exclusive rights to
AI inventions via patents) and avoiding too many exclusive rights
(possibly even to unused inventions) that may end up blocking
further innovation?
Last year the International Association for the Protection of
Intellectual Property (AIPPI) dedicated a study question to
"Inventorship of inventions made using Artificial
Intelligence". At its 2020 World Congress (held online) it
adopted a resolution on this topic (the full resolution can be
found here), pushing lawmakers to consider these
issues sooner rather than later. So, the legal issues of AI-based
inventions are already here in "real life" and we must
come up with solutions to deal with them. Or will we just wait for
AI to provide the solution?
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