Intellectual Property and Artificial Intelligence
Tshimanga Kongolo · 2024
IP relates to creations of the human mind by putting human beings or natural persons at the center of any creation worthy of IP protection. This chapter first describes the landscape of AI, focusing on its importance, various applications, and definitions. Second, the interfaces between AI and IP categories such as copyright and related rights, including creative industries, trademarks, branding and designs, and patents and trade secrets, are scrutinized with the aim of highlighting new issues and challenges generated by those interactions. After discussing the current positions of some jurisdictions as well as court decisions, the author proposes the following way forward to contribute to the resolution of those issues through legislative adjustment: AI-Generated Inventions To clearly prescribe in a new provision that AI-generated inventions are protectable under the current patent system under certain conditions. To set forth that for AI-generated inventions, the owner of the patent or the patentee is the person who has control over the invention. Consequently, the inclusion of the inventor is not required, and exclusive rights are conferred to the person who has control. Each piece of legislation will list, in a non-exhaustive manner, elements to consider for evaluating the control. To provide that the protection period of AI-generated inventions may be less than 20 years upon the request of the applicant. To provide explicitly that inventions generated autonomously by an AI are not deemed in the public domain and are patentable under certain conditions. 1