UKIPO publishes wide-ranging AI and IP consultation
The UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) is seeking views on the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on all areas of the IP system.
The consultation, announced yesterday, September 7, calls for interested parties to offer their “ideas, expertise, and insight” on key questions involving the relationship between AI and IP.
As part of the consultation, the IPO published separate documents outlining questions about how AI intersects with patents, trademarks, copyright, designs, and trade secrets.
The main theme of the patents consultation is whether AI can be considered an “inventor”. At present, no jurisdiction has recognised AI as an inventor. The IPO has rejected a patent application listing AI application Dabus as an inventor, as have the European Patent Office (EPO) and the US Patent and Trademark Office.
Other areas of the patents document examine issues including the inventive step required for an invention to be patentable.
Specifically, the IPO asked whether AI challenges the “level of inventive step required to obtain a patent”, and whether it should introduce the concept of a “machine of ordinary skill in the art”.
Elsewhere, the IPO is also seeking views on the impact of AI on trademark law, including the concept of the “average consumer” and whether AI can be an infringer.
The IPO asked whether current trademark law can be successfully applied to AI technology, or whether it must be adapted.
The consultation poses a total of 45 questions across each of the five sections, and members of the public will have until November 30 to respond.
The IPO said one of the goals of the consultation was to ensure that the UK remains “at the forefront of the AI and data revolution”.
An IPO report published last June revealed that US inventors file more AI patents in the UK than British inventors.
The report said the figure was “likely a reflection of the fact that many of the leading applicants are US-based technology companies, but it is still striking”.
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