Artificial intelligence is driving the information revolution and its presence is increasingly commonplace, including in smart speakers, self-driving cars, social media monitoring and healthcare technology.
The U.K. government recently released its response to the consultation on artificial intelligence and intellectual property. The position is that the U.K. law will not change with respect to the protection of copyright in computer-generated works.
There are a lot of complex questions for regulators, lawyers, programmers, creatives and inventors. The column addresses a small but significant aspect of this, how artificial intelligence should be considered in the context of copyright protection and authorship in the U.K.
There are differences between inventorship in the context of patents and authorship in copyrighted works. We look at how the U.K. Court might approach the issue of authorship and joint authorship, as well as some useful considerations for programmers and authors.
Human applicants are required in U.K. patent applications. Only the author of the invention can be called an inventor. The requirements were looked at by the U.K. Intellectual Property Office.
The Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia reversed the decision of the lower court, and published their decision on the issue. The U.K. Supreme Court and the United States are appealing.
The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 provides a framework for determining the author of a copyrighted work. The author is the writer, composer and artist of the works. It is the producer for sound recordings and the principal director for films. Unless the producer and the principal director are the same person, films will be joint authorship.
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