Artificial creativity—is the IP system ready for robot inventors?

Published

Aug 05 2019

Written By

Partner
UK

I am fascinated by IP and the challenge of helping my clients protect, exploit and defend their IP rights to further their business objectives.

Practices

Intellectual Property

Sectors

Technology & Communications

Countries

IP analysis: At a conference organised by World Intellectual Property Organization in June 2019 entitled ‘AI: decoding IP’, Lord Kitchin, Justice of the Supreme Court, gave one of the opening speeches. Although Lord Kitchin began his speech by commenting on the profound promise of artificial intelligence (AI), he went on to warn that it will bring with it challenging issues for regulators and lawmakers. Katharine Stephens, partner and co-head of Bird & Bird’s London IP department, considers a few of the questions raised in Lord Kitchin’s speech.

In his speech, Lord Kitchin argues that AI is becoming increasingly able to carry out ‘all or the predominant part of the creative and innovative work’ in the creation of concepts and inventions. According to current UK patent law,…