AI Tests Intellectual Property Boundaries

As businesses invest more heavily in AI, what intellectual property challenges are they likely to encounter? How do we avoid AI have a "chilling" effect on human creativity and enable rightsholders to guard against their intellectual creations being scraped to train AI without their consent? This briefing looks at issues relating to IP rights in AI systems and in AI-generated content, the potential infringement risks that can arise from training AI and from its outputs – as well as at the UK Government's response to these issues.

1. Introduction
2. IP in the AI system
3. IP in AI-generated works
4. Infringement risk
5. Conclusion

Introduction

In our earlier briefing, we looked at the UK's approach to regulating AI and how it compares with the EU's AI Act. Both regimes look to strike a balance between encouraging innovation, on the one hand, and the responsible use of AI, on the other, but they go about it in very different ways. Intellectual property law also