IP5 hold joint AI response meeting
Representatives of the world’s five largest IP offices met last week in order to better coordinate their response to AI and emerging technologies.
Launched last year, the IP5 Task Force on New Emerging Technologies and Artificial Intelligence (incorporating IP offices from China, Europe, Japan, Korea, US, and joined by the World Intellectual Property Organization ( WIPO)) explores the “legal, technical and policy aspects of new technologies and AI, their impact on the patent system and on operations at our five offices,” according to an official statement.
The aim is to pinpoint which areas can most benefit from joint IP5 responses, ranging from employing AI to improve the patent grant process, to applying the patentability requirements to inventions in the field of AI, and handling applications for inventions created by machines.
“We hope to learn from each other and help each other,” said Daewon Lee, director of the international cooperation division at the Korean Intellectual Property Office ( KIPO). The gathering, held in Berlin on January 15-16, was the first joint task force meeting since the group’s inception at an IP5 event in June last year.
“This task force is the IP5 offices’ first joint response to a changing global patenting landscape and evolving user needs in the field,” said Christoph Ernst, vice president, legal and international affairs, European Patent Office (EPO).
“New emerging technologies and AI touch upon almost every aspect of daily life, and question traditional models around knowledge flows and decision-making. This translates into considerable challenges in IP, and the task force is a chance for us to demonstrate that we are agile and responsive to change,” added Ernst.
The task force comprises the IP5 members— KIPO, EPO, the China National Intellectual Property Administration ( CNIPA), the Japan Patent Office ( JPO), the US Patent and Trademark Office ( USPTO)—and WIPO.
At the start of this year, a court in Shenzhen ruled in favour of Tencent, which claimed that work created by its Dreamwriter robot had been copied by a local financial news company, according to state media outlet China News Service.
Dreamwriter is an automated writing system created by Tencent and based on the company’s own algorithms.
In December 2019, the EPO rejected two patent applications from the University of Surrey, claiming Dabus, an AI application, as an inventor. The machine is said to have designed a type of plastic food container and flashing beacon light.
The IP5 Berlin meeting was attended by 30 experts from the legal, patent examination and IT departments of the five offices, and the WIPO.
By June this year, the task force hopes to develop a scoping document (outlining project deliverables, major objectives, and measurable success criteria for work) in the area of AI and new emerging technologies, with the document submitted to the heads of the five offices.
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