By: Sweta Mishra
INTRODUCTION TO ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE:
There has been a huge advancement in the sphere of technology and moreover, huge resources are being invested may it be by human beings/organisations into these advancements. The term “Artificial Intelligence” was coined by John McCarthy in a conference in the year 1956 which meant “science and engineering of making machines-intelligent machines that can process and interpret language; mine and analyse data; and create artistic and original works”.[1]
British and United States Governments had invested huge amount of resources into AI during 1956 and 1980 and thus, it was considered as a golden period for the AI. In the first place, AI is attractive for information collection due to three factors- speed, scale and automation. The speed at which AI performs calculations is much faster than that of human analysts and can also be constantly improved by more hardware addition. AI is capable of using large data sets for analysis as well and is perhaps the only way in which big data is processed in a reasonable amount of time. Finally, the designed tasks can be carried out without supervision, which considerably improves the efficiency of analysis.
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Many consumer products have functions that make them susceptible to AI data use. In order to make the situation worse, people often ignore how much data they produce process or share with their software and devices and as we are increasingly dependent on digital technology in our daily lives, the potential for exploitation only increases. Voice-recognition and recognition of the face are two ways of recognising AI’s performance and these methods are capable of seriously compromising public anonymity. Moreover, AI can use sophisticated algorithms for machine learning to draw sensible data from non-sensitive data forms. AI not only carries out data collection tasks. The data can also be used as input to sort, classify, evaluate and grade people. AI can be further used for identifying, Tracking and monitoring individuals, whether on- the job, at home or in public plays across several devices. This allows to de-anonymize your personal information on the basis of inferences from other. This flushes the distinction that is to be maintained in accordance with present legislation between personal and non-personal data. Moreover, AI is used to make recipes, make designs for clothing purpose and also helps in making music. It is predicted that these AI and other machines may be considered as the creators and drivers of these unique innovations though, it is considered to be impossible in order to gain rights over such creations on behalf of AI and in this way, Intellectual property law’s role comes to action in case of Artificial Intelligence.
INTRODUCTION TO INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY:
The government grants every creation of an intellect certain exclusive right for its creation and the holder is able to protect his property that includes literature, music, symbols, brands, inventions and innovations for a certain period of time, preventing others from tampering it. These rights, included widely in the property rights, are known as Intellectual Property Rights. Starting with the Harappa civilization, the scavenged potteries had special marks that determined the maker’s ideology and ownership. In Germany, special privileges were given to the constructors of model mills to store grains. The establishment of the Paris convention from the evolvement of the Vienna exhibition led to the recognition of protection of Intellectual Property Rights. In India, the Act VI on protection of inventions of 1856 surpassed the British Patent Law of 1852. The latter was the basis of creation of the latter. Since then, there have been many modifications in the Act based on the necessity of making stricter rules for protection of creation of work. Act VI was modified into Act XV whereby, regulations were made to reconsider the 14year period granted to inventors for protection of their creations. In 1872, the Act was renamed into the Patents and Design Protection Act, followed by the Protection of Inventions Act, 1883 and The Inventions and Designs Act and The Indian Patens and Designs Act, in 1888 and 1911 respectively. The right to Intellectual Property is not a right provided for tangible objects but also for the mind considered as a property. Intellectual property can also be described as ‘knowledge goods’ which was mentioned in the case of Bayer Corporation v. Union of India and Others[2]. The main reason of providing laws to protect intellectual property by many countries is to promote designing and innovation to furnish the social and economic development. Intellectual property is broadly divided into two subsets, Copyright and industrial property. Copyright persists in original literary, musical and artistic works, cinematograph films, sound recording, etc. in India. Whereas industrial property specifically deals with inventions and creations of human mind which includes patents, trademarks, integrated circuits, geographical indications and protection against unfair competition.[3]
Conventions based on IPR:
In 1960, United International Bureaux for the Protection of Intellectual Property [Bureaux Internationaux Réunis pour la Protection de la Propriété Intellectually (BIRPI)], was shifted from Berne to Geneva for increasing awareness of protection of IPR and bringing it in the consideration of United Nations. Later, the name of the international organization United International Bureaux for the Protection of Intellectual Property was changed to World Intellectual Property organization (WIPO).[4]
WIPO was signed in Stockholm on July14, 1967 and came into force in 1970 with an amendment in 1979. The two main objectives of WIPO were to promote the protection of IPR worldwide and to ensure administrative cooperation among the intellectual property Unions established by the treaties that WIPO administers.[5] In 2002, WIPO organized a study regarding IPR on the Internet. The survey focused on the international aspects of the effect of Internet evolution on IPR rights and duties of related individuals and organizations. In the process, the techno-savvy world has reorganized the very basis of copyright jurisprudence, thereby shattering the basic laws pertaining to it. Hence, the survey explains about the need to adhere to the set legal rules and ensure that technology and Internet do not undermine the basic tenets of copyright and related rights. Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (1886).
The Berne convention is based three important principles:
- Works originated by an author in a particular state must be given the same protection in
each of the other contracting states.
- Protection must not be conditional upon compliance with any formality.
- If contracting State provides for a longer term of protection than the minimum prescribed by the Convention and the work ceases to be protected in the country of origin, protection may be denied once protection in the country of origin ceases.[6]
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RELATION BETWEEN INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE:
There has been a paradigm shift which is being experienced by AI in its theory application to commercial application. According to the World Intellectual Property Organization (‘WIPO’), “early 340,000 patent families related to artificial intelligence [have been] published from 1960 until early 2018.”[7] The Copyright Law also tries in protection of the software codes which are an integral part of the AI programming. As a matter of fact, these AI algorithms which aren’t easy to be reversed are entitled to protection under the scope of trade secrets and thus the Trademark Law intends in protection of the names of such robots.
It is pertinent to mention here that the existing Intellectual Property rights affect the Artificial Intelligence in some way or other. IBM has the largest portfolio of AI patents with 8,290 patent applications, followed by Microsoft with 5,930 patent applications.[8] The creators/owners of original works not only intend to acquire Intellectual Property rights but also exploit such rights in the Artificial Intelligence mode of technologies. For instance, “the Chinese Academy of Science has between 2008 and 2016 transferred and transformed 7,000 IP assets (transfer, license, self-implementation, price-for-share, technology development and technical services) with a contract value of more than RMB12 billion”[9]. Therefore, it can be said that the Intellectual Property Law not only protects the inventions but also prevents exploitation of such rights in the inventions pertaining to AI. The invention needs to be novel and should be capable enough for industrial production in order to be patented under the existing laws and provisions of India.
The question of difficulty arises when the AI technologies and AI inventions start playing a role in creation of certain works. As seen earlier, Ais are playing a huge role in making recipes, designing of clothes etc and thus, it is being even more complicated and difficult to acquire rights to protect such works which are being invented by the Ais on their won and such works are even considered of the best quality than if being prepared by huma beings. For instance- “In a related trend, an AI conceived and executed a masterpiece known as ‘The Next Rembrandt’ using huge set of raw data and deep-learning algorithms in 2017.”[10]
The human being usually puts his labour and skill and uses the abilities of AI in order to make certain data which are then put into the AI in order to invent on the basis of such data. Thus, it wouldn’t be justifiable if such human being is not being permitted to acquire rights under Intellectual Property Law in order to protect such inventions. Therefore, it wouldn’t act as an incentive in order to motivate such human being who created such inventions through the help of his own skill and AI’s learning abilities.
Thus, it can be concluded by saying that there are numerous questions which need to be answered after years regarding the actual meaning of “Author”, what comes under the purview of “Patentable”, who is an “Inventor”, liability in case of AIs hampering the IP rights of the human beings, status of ownership and whether AIs can be granted rights under the Patent Law when they become independent enough to invent things on their own without the help or efforts of human beings.
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[1] Meaning of Artificial Intelligence, http://jmc.stanford.edu/articles/whatisai.html
[2] Bayer Corporation v. Union of India and Others, 2014(5) ABR 242: MIPR 2014 (3) 53: 2014 (60) PTC 277
(Bom)
[3] “Intellectual, industrial and commercial property | Fact Sheets on the European Union | European Parliament” (September 17, 2019; 20:00 pm)
[4] “WIPO — A Brief History”. World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).
[5] Summaries of Conventions, Treaties and Agreements Administered by WIPO
[6] Supra 6
[7] Kathleen Walch, ‘Artificial Intelligence Is Not A Technology’, (2018) Available from: https://www.forbes.com/sites/cognitiveworld/2018/11/01/artificial-intelligence-is-not-a-technology/#7b4dc6645dcb, Accessed on 11th November, 2020 at 6:00 pm.
[8] Ibid, Pg. 58
[9] Ibid
[10] Kavita Iyer, ‘Google’s AI Creates Its Own AI That Is Superior Than The Ones Made By Humans’, (2017) Available from: https://www.techworm.net/2017/12/googles-ai-creates-ai-superior-ones-made-humans.html, Accessed on 12th November, 2020 at 8:00 am