UK Government asks for the public’s views on how to deal with AI and IP rights

Following its call for views on AI and the IP framework in early 2021, the UK Government has released another consultation on AI and IP rights. Led by the IPO, the consultation is available here, and is open until 7 January 2022.

This consultation is more focused than the call for views. It asks for preferred positions on a small number of scenarios regarding the future treatment of three specific areas:

• Copyright protection for computer-generated works without a human author.
• Licensing or exceptions to copyright for text and data mining.
• Patent protection for AI-devised inventions.

The reference to such specific scenarios suggests that AI legislative reform may finally be on the horizon.

While some of the scenarios included in the consultation contemplate solutions that have already been adopted (or at least committed to) by other countries such as Singapore (which you can read about in our blog post, New Singapore copyright exception will propel AI revolution), others are entirely novel. The fact that each proposed solution carries some degree of weight shows just how vexed the various considerations are, and so it worth exploring in this blog post how certain rights may be impacted by whichever route the UK Government takes.

Click here to read more.