The Korean Intellectual Property Office (Commissioner Kim Yong-rae) will form a consultative body of AI invention experts (tentative name) to examine in more depth how to recognize patents for inventions made by artificial intelligence (AI) and hold its first meeting online on December 10th 2021.

In line with the recent rapid development of AI technology Professor Steven Taylor a US AI developer applied for patents in 16 countries around the world claiming that his AI (DABUS*) developed an invention he did not know himself.

* DABUS : Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience

In response most countries including Korea the United States the United Kingdom and Europe rejected the patent application of Professor Taylor whose AI is listed as an inventor on the grounds that under the current patent law only a natural person can be an inventor. However regarding the rejection of the Australian Patent Office the Australian Federal Court recently made the first decision to recognize AI as an inventor through unique Australian patent regulations and flexible interpretation*. The term allowed for appeal is until August 29th and the Australian Patent Office is currently reviewing whether to appeal.

* ①There is no explicit provision that AI cannot be an inventor ② there is no provision to exclude a non-human inventor and ③ Inventor can be interpreted as inventions such as elevator

In addition the South African Patent Office granted the patent in July after a perfunctory review omitting the review of whether AI could also become an inventor. Unlike other countries it is known that there is a special system in which its Intellectual Property Office does not examine the substance before patent registration. Various issues have continued to be discussed through the Korean Intellectual Property Offices Digital IP Forum however as the AI inventor issue has emerged as an international issue there is a need to review it in more detail by focusing on whether AIs inventions should be protected as a patent is increasing.

The AI Invention Expert Consultative Body is divided into legislation technology and industries in order to collect various opinions from all walks of life and is comprised of about 15 AI experts in each division. The Division of Legislation is composed of legal experts such as professors judges and lawyers who are knowledgeable about AI inventions including publishing papers and plans to discuss legal issues such as whether the AI inventor should be recognized and to whom AIs patent rights for an invention should belong to.

The Technology Division is composed of university researchers who are developing AI and the Industry Division is composed of experts from companies commercializing AI. It plans to discuss technical issues such as the technology level of AI whether AI can invent on its own and the impact of the protection of inventions made by AI on our industry.

Kim Ji-soo director of the Patent Examination Policy bureau of the Korean Intellectual Property Office said As AI technology is becoming important enough to determine national competitiveness in the future various measures for Koreas AI technology and industrial development should be sought. The Korean Intellectual Property Office will consider preemptive and future-oriented ways to protect AIs invention in order to enhance the competitiveness of Korea by fully collecting the opinions of various experts such as academia research and industry.

Not only in patents but also in copyrights the fact that AI becomes another source of creativity throws a new research task in the area of copyright law whether AIs works can be protected by copyright law if it is protected who is the author of AI works.

This study aims to efficiently respond to the rapid development of technology such as AI and to expand and develop the discussion of related copyright laws by reviewing legal interpretations and opinions on the copyright of AI works. The purpose of this study is to focus on copyright protection and creativity which are the main issues of the copyright of artificial intelligence creations to find out the limitations of the application of copyright law and new copyright laws centering on the author to propose copyright legislation policy based on it and to further seek social consensus.

As a result of in-depth interviews with the law scholars media law scholars media scholars technology development researchers copyright managers and content creators while they are positively evaluating the inclusion of AI creations into the area of copyright law protection there was a need to apply a weaker copyright protection theory that lowers the level of protection compared to human creations. As a way to differentiate the protection method for AI the reduction of the copyright protection period and the calculation of the protection period based on the timing of creation registration and application were suggested. In addition the prevailing opinion was that the scope of protection should be reduced by applying stricter standards for judging creativity compared to human creations and for the granting of authors status to artificial intelligence the experts were generally negative. In addition it was focused on the view that it is reasonable to gradually set the level or method of copyright protection of artificial intelligence creations based on the autonomy of artificial intelligence and the degree of human intervention and contribution.

※ Source Provided: From Copyright issue of AI creation - focusing on creation and author judgment - Korea Citation Index

Likewise the role of artificial intelligence is growing across the field of intellectual property such as copyright as well as patents. It is needed for Korea to introduce the system as soon as possible to become an advanced country of intellectual property.

출처 : WIPNEWS(http://www.wip-news.com)