Intellectual property right protection for works and inventions produced by AI – copyrights and patent rights

Abstract

The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in different operations concerned with Intellectual Property (IP) grows rapidly. Yet, there is no legal act regulating IP rights (IPRs) of an output that was created or invented with the help of AI. Hence, it is important to understand, whether AI output can enjoy copyright and patent protection. Therefore, firstly, the concepts of work and invention are examined, as well as two kinds of AI output – AI-assisted and AI-generated – are analysed. Secondly, deontological and utilitarian IPR justification theories are explored to see whether they can be applicable to protection of AI output. Thirdly, court judgements are discussed, topicality of the findings for businesses is established, and recommendations for potential IP legislation improvements are proposed. The results show that AI-assisted output can enjoy copyright and patent right protection, so far a human has sufficiently participated in the production process. AI-generated output fails to be granted protection.