Artificial Intelligence and Intellectual Property Law
19 Pages Posted: 15 Sep 2022
Date Written: May 20, 2022
Artificial intelligence (AI) affects the current system of intellectual property (IP) rights. AI tools are not only used to facilitate the search, examination, administration and enforcement of IP rights; more importantly, AI tools and the works generated by them can be protected by copyright or patents. Such protection can incentivise their further development, but also limit their enjoyment and dissemination. This chapter analyzes to what extent patent and copyright protection is currently available for AI technologies as well as for AI-assisted and future AI-generated works, in particular under European Union (EU) law and the Convention on the Grant of European Patents (EPC). While fully autonomously AI-generated works are still a matter of the future, the challenges and questions as to their potential protection are also addressed. I conclude that while the protection of AI technologies under patent and copyright law does not pose too many problems, the protection of AI-assisted and future AI-generated works does.
Moerland, A. (forthcoming), ‘AI and Intellectual Property Law’, in: Lim, E. and Morgan P., The Cambridge Handbook of Private Law and Artificial Intelligence, Cambridge University Press – accepted for publication in a revised form
Keywords: AI-generated works, AI-assisted works, AI inventorship, AI ownership, patent, copyright
JEL Classification: K11
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