Posts Tagged: "AI"

The U.S. Copyright Office (USCO) this week finalized its refusal to uphold, in part, a registration it issued to Kristina Kashtanova for a graphic novel that contained generative artwork and human story and design elements. In a letter sent to Kashtanova’s counsel on Tuesday, the USCO expressed its concerns that underlying artwork generated using the AI-powered text-to-image tool Midjourney was capable of meeting the human authorship requirement for copyright protection. “Because Midjourney starts with randomly generated noise that evolves into a final image, there is no guarantee that a particular prompt will generate any particular visual output,” the USCO wrote in the letter.

Now is an exciting time in the world of artificial intelligence (AI) and intellectual property law. Academics have been interested in this field for a long time, and more narrowly in certain issues, like the legal status of works created by an AI in the absence of a traditional human author (AI-generated works). But AI-generated works have not traditionally been very interesting to lawyers, policymakers, or businesses, because while AI has been functionally making creative works for decades, the technology was never that commercially useful.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO’s) announcement early last week that it is requesting public comments on artificial intelligence (AI) and inventorship indicates that changes may eventually be implemented with respect to how the Office considers inventions created, or partially created, by AI machines. The Office is asking for input on 11 questions, including “how does the use of an AI system [in the invention process]…differ from the use of other technical tools”; whether AI inventions may be patentable under current patent laws on joint inventorship; and if statutory or regulatory changes should be made to better address AI contributions to inventions.

Last week, artificial intelligence (AI) systems developer Dr. Stephen Thaler filed a motion for summary judgment in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in a lawsuit over copyright eligibility for artwork created by AI systems. Thaler’s motion for summary judgment argues that AI-generated works are copyrightable under U.S. federal law and that the copyright should vest in Thaler under common law property principles and the work made for hire doctrine.

“Non-fungible tokens (NFTs),” “blockchain,” “metaverse,” “web3,” and “artificial intelligence (AI)” are buzzwords that solicited significant discussion and development in the area of intellectual property (IP) law in 2022. This overview covers five key topics in IP law that affected the growth and mainstream adoption of these emerging technologies last year.

The research lab behind the viral ChatGPT chatbot, OpenAI, is in talks to sell existing shares in a tender offer that would value the company at around $29 billion, according to people familiar with the matter, reported the Wall Street Journal on January 5. This would make OpenAI, which started life as a nonprofit and generates virtually no revenue, one of the most valuable U.S. startups. Chatbots have captured the imagination of users and investors alike. They provide fast, succinct, and outwardly accurate responses to detailed questions well beyond the capabilities of Alexa, Siri and Google search. Those queries might include providing the foundation for writing an article, like the one you are currently reading, in the style of IPWatchdog.

In general, the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technologies has the potential to impact society in many ways. These technologies can automate tasks and make them more efficient, which can lead to job displacement and other economic impacts. They can also be used to make decisions that affect people’s lives, such as in the criminal justice system or in hiring, which raises ethical concerns. Additionally, the development and use of AI and machine learning technologies can raise issues related to privacy and security. What could be a more fitting way to open a 2022 year-in-review article on AI and machine learning than by asking OpenAI’s newly beta-released ChatGPT tool to contribute? The above paragraph was generated using ChatGPT’s conversational, chat-based dialog input. The initial request of ChatGPT was the prompt: “Explain the social impacts of artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies over the past year.”

Much has been written about patent quality. But many authors approach this problem with a bias against the very idea of a patent system. These critics would “solve” the patent quality problem by cutting down the total number of issued patents rather than focusing on problem patents. They suggest increasing examiners and examination time will weed out bad quality patents. And this might throw up additional roadblocks to inventors obtaining a patent by increasing the time and cost of securing an allowance. But this does not necessarily improve patent quality. Instead, it merely reduces the total number of patents issued. Rather than “more examination,” solutions to the patent quality problem need to focus on “better examination.” In theory, “better examination” should stop invalid claims from ever getting issued while simultaneously streamlining allowance for valid claims.

On October 28, Kristina Kashtanova, an artist and artificial intelligence (AI) consultant and researcher, received notice from the U.S. Copyright Office (USCO) that the registration for the first issue of her partially AI-generated graphic novel, Zarya Of The Dawn, may be canceled. A month earlier, on September 15, the USCO issued a registration for Kashtanova’s work, which was subsequently widely publicized as the first known instance of an AI-generated work being successfully registered with the USCO. In the USCO’s recent communication, “I was asked to provide details of my process to show that there was substantial human involvement in the process of creation of this graphic novel,” Kashtanova explained by email. When asked to confirm the potential cancellation for Kashtanova’s registration, the USCO provided a written statement saying…“Copyright under U.S. law requires human authorship. The Office will not knowingly grant registration to a work that was claimed to have been created solely by machine with artificial intelligence.”

Intellectual property (IP) provides us a front row seat to the cutting-edge of technology. The legal questions arising at this frontier are often as complex as the resulting inventions and creative works. The Federal Circuit’s recent Thaler v. Vidal opinion clarifies an important patent law concept, specifically whether an artificial intelligence (AI) may be listed as the inventor of a patent. The current industrial revolution powered by blockchain and crypto continues to raise issues about how it meshes with our current IP legal framework…. The latest question at the cutting-edge of “who, or what may, be an inventor” begs whether a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), a new type of digital blockchain-based organization, can participate in IP-related activities, including the invention, ownership, licensing, and enforcement of patent rights.

The August 2019 announcement that two patent applications had been filed naming an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm as an inventor in the United States and a dozen other countries was regarded as disruptive and profound at the time. It was one of the hot topics in patent law during those last few months before the pandemic. But since then, given all the other crazy and disorienting stuff that has happened in the world, we have become desensitized to the question, even if it is just as radical and important today. To be sure, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit’s August 5 ruling that an “inventor” must, under the Patent Act, always be a human being, would seem to definitively resolve the question. As a matter of existing and clearly settled law, Stephen Thaler’s AI machine, DABUS, cannot be a named inventor on his applications for a fractal-shaped beverage container and a neural flame, like we always thought in the Before Times. It’s time to relegate this parlor-game discussion to the same recycle bin as Beeple’s non-fungible token (NFT), The Tiger King, and so many other viral distractions. Or, perhaps, not so fast.

Summer has been historically associated with celebrating the enactment of the Trademark Act of 1946 (the “Lanham Act”). Accordingly, Congress now annually introduces resolutions celebrating July, along with Independence, as “anti-counterfeiting awareness month.” These non-binding resolutions are an important reminder of the national importance of trademarks—and a reminder that counterfeiting, and related bad faith trademark misconduct, negatively impacts U.S. small businesses, American jobs, the U.S. economy, and erodes our international competitiveness. Increasingly, brand owners are fighting numerous trademark issues around bad faith registrations and more artful counterfeiting every day of every month. Fortunately, one important element of the solution for restoring the integrity of the register are the tools made possible by responsible artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) image recognition technology that can fight the fakes.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) ruled today in Thaler v. Vidal that an artificial intelligence (AI) machine does not qualify as an inventor under the Patent Act. The decision is the latest in a series of rulings around the world considering the topic, most of which have found similarly. Judge Stark authored the opinion.

Editor’s Note: Dean A. Pelletier of Pelletier Law, LLC co-authored this article with Erik Weibust.

Legal, technology, business, and academic professionals currently are debating whether an invention autonomously generated by artificial intelligence (AI) should be patentable in the United States and elsewhere. Some proponents of patentability argue that if AI, by itself, is not recognized as an inventor, then AI owners will lack protection for AI-generated inventions and AI innovation, commercialization, and investment (collectively, AI innovation) will be inhibited as a result. Some of those proponents further argue that, without patent protection as an option, AI owners increasingly will opt for trade secret protection, which by design reduces public disclosure of corresponding inventions and, as such, still will inhibit AI innovation. Some opponents of patentability, on the other hand, argue that patenting AI-generated inventions will promote those inventions and discourage human-generated inventions, thereby reducing human innovation and ultimately competition, because patent ownership will become concentrated, or more concentrated, in fewer entities—in particular, large, well-funded entities.

On June 2, Dr. Stephen Thaler filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. naming as defendants both the United States Copyright Office (USCO) and Shira Perlmutter, in her official capacity as Register of Copyrights and Director of the USCO. The complaint marks the start of a new phase of Thaler’s attempts at obtaining a copyright registration for “A Recent Entrance to Paradise,” an AI-generated work that is the output of Thaler’s AI system known as Creativity Machine. Thaler is requesting the district court issue an order that would require the USCO to set aside the Review Board’s decision and reinstate the application for registration of the work. Thaler is also seeking an award of reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs. The case is Stephen Thaler v. Shira Perlmutter and The United States Copyright Office (1:22-cv-01564) (June 2, 2022).