Since the emergence of primitive Artificial Intelligence (AI) in 1950, its development and growth has been exponential. Today, whether we realize it or not, we interact with AI on almost a daily basis and these have become a part of our everyday life. The most common AI’s which have become a household name are the ‘Google Search Engine’, ‘Google Translator’ and of course one of the most popular applications of Apple Inc., SIRI.
In simplest terms, AI is considered to be any task undertaken by a machine or a program which are commonly associated with intelligent beings (human beings). Therefore, AI systems will usually demonstrate some behaviors associated with human intelligence which includes planning; learning; analyzing; reasoning; problem solving; etc. The exercise of ‘Learning’ and improvisation is undoubtedly the most crucial process towards the development of an AI system/program which enables these machines to take in Data, process and analyze it and subsequently aid them to become smarter and more intelligent.
It is expected that AI will see unprecedented growth in the times to come and that there are substantial opportunities for businesses to grow and compete where AI has become prevalent. Some of these industries include HealthCare, Energy & Mining, Information Technology Service Management, Software Development and Manufacturing. Moreover, AI has certain by-products which may substantially benefit industries like Agriculture experiencing labor shortages as the automation and efficiency gained from AI may in fact strengthen such industries and bring long term stability.
Since AI is a product of technology and innovation, it is important to consider its relationship with Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) as AI and Intellectual Property are intrinsically related and the question of IPRs arise in two broad spectrums. The first is at the time of identification and protection of a given AI technology itself along with the Data it relies on to operate and the second is at the time of identification and protection of IPRs created by the AI autonomously.
As a matter of general principle and in order to ensure that the inventor is able to gain an economic reward by the grant of exclusive, monopoly rights, AI may be protected as Patents and/or Copyrights- since computer programs are protected under Copyrights as ‘Literary Works’ in some jurisdictions including Pakistan. Interestingly, AI may also be protected as Trade Secrets. However, it is for the businesses to ascertain the most relevant type of Intellectual Property for their AI and this largely depends on the type of AI developed and their vision and strategy for the product. For example, Patent protection provides the inventor with an exclusive right to exploit the relevant technology for a period of 20 years in exchange for public disclosure of the invention, whereas Copyright protection expands over the life of the author and 50 years thereafter (Pakistan), however a Copyright protection is not as expansive as Patent protection and does not protect the functional aspects of the software. Moreover, copyright infringement requires that the infringer copies the whole or a substantial part of the source code which, for a person skilled in the art, may not be very difficult to crack.
With regards to Trade Secrets, this may also be a highly effective measure to protect confidential business information including AI, provided that the technology is such that it cannot be reverse engineered and that there are adequate security measures in place to guard against any leak. One of the prime examples of protection of AI as a Trade Secret is Google’s search algorithm and other real-life examples include processes developed by Intel for its integrated circuits. Many of these processes may likely have patent protection however there are certain aspects of the processed which are not patented and simple left as ‘secret’. These secret processes would be trade secrets – and very valuable.
Lastly, as mentioned above, the second aspect where AI and IPRs integrate is over works/inventions created by the AI autonomously. This is a complicated domain where the where the question of Law primarily vests on the authorship/ownership of such works. Several cases for patent applications have been reported where the applicant has named an AI application as the inventor.
However, the solution to this is not as straight forward and this aspect remains largely undeveloped. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has also identified key challenges on whether AI should be recognized as an inventor and/or owner of patent rights and has asked stake holders to provide their comments on the IP Policy developed in this area. Suffice it to say for the present purposes that given the pace at which AI is advancing, a substantial overhauling of the current state of Laws regarding patentability and/or authorship is required to provide protection for works and/or inventions created by AI technology along with an improvisation on the infringement standards.
