At the beginning of February 2023, the Council of Europe Committee on Artificial Intelligence published the "zero" draft Convention on Artificial Intelligence, Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law. The document is dated 6 January, 2023, and is the Council of Europe's preliminary proposal for the AI future regulatory framework. The Council of Europe began work on the draft in September 2019, and was tasked with examining the feasibility of creating a legal framework to ensure that the design, development and application of AI systems would adhere to standards on human rights, the functioning of democracy and the observance of rule of law . At the beginning of 2022, the Council of Europe set up the Committee on Artificial Intelligence (CAI), which published the revised "zero" draft [Framework] Convention on Artificial Intelligence, Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law, dated 6 January 2023, in February 2023[1]. The Convention is being drafted to establish only a general framework on application of AI systems. Upon examination, even though it is a preliminary and working document, the proposal reveals that the envisaged Convention will not provide for requirements or bans directly applicable to private and legal persons.

Potential obstacles to obtaining patent protection in Europe for an improvement in a general method for machine learning have been highlighted by a recent decision (T0702/20) from the EPO Board of Appeal. The decision relates to an application for a novel neural network apparatus having "loose coupling", based on an error code check matrix, between nodes of the neural network resulting in an initial configuration of the neural network that was argued to speed up training and operation of the apparatus while maintaining discrimination performance. The differences of the claimed invention over the prior art had been acknowledged during prosecution, but the Examining Division had rejected the Application on the basis that the distinguishing features "do not serve a technical purpose, and they are not related to a specific technical implementation either. They merely pertain to the initial, fixed structural definition of an abstract mathematical neural network-like model". During the Appeal, the Applicant provided several arguments as to why the claimed system did indeed serve a technical purpose which were not found persuasive by the Board. In response, the Board noted that a neural network can, in principle (if difficult in practice), be analysed to replace the inputs to each neuron by mathematical functions implemented by the nodes of the previous layer, and ultimately to obtain a mathematical description that describes the output of the neural network as a function of the input.

Incorporating artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and software, Femtech is an emerging industry that is already changing medical…

Increasing the use of health data and artificial intelligence in Turkey; conducting and supporting scientific and technological research in this …

As part of developing an AI Risk Management Framework, the US National Institute for Science and Technology (NIST) has published a draft report…

Dr Stephen Thaler's worldwide journey for an artificial intelligence ("AI") to be recognised as an inventor under patent law has hit another …

Section 101 states "[w]hoever invents or discovers…may obtain a patent therefore…" According to 35 U.S.C. § 100, an inventor is defined as an individual or individuals. As technology has advanced and the possibility that AI would invent something became a probability, the question has arisen whether AI can be an inventor under United States law.

January 1, 2020, organizations that employ individuals based in Illinois will need to keep in mind the Artificial Intelligence Video Interview Act. This Act sets forth new requirements for video-recorded interviews using AI to analyze such recordings. The law is not limited to just Illinois residents. It applies to applicants for positions based in Illinois. While brief, and without any definitions, the Act requires three things before using AI technology in video interviews. First, businesses using AI technology in this way must notify the applicant before the interview that AI may be used.

In one of our latest blog posts, we went through the first part of our hints and tips on outsourcing agreements and artificial intelligence, covering #1 Technological evolution and benchmarking clauses, #2 Liability and limitations, and #3 Know-how transfer, insourcing and supplier replacement. Below is the second part on: #4 Intellectual Property, #5 Data protection and #6 Cyber risk and Insurance. Where AI systems are employed in the outsourcing of processes there could be a tight interdependency between customer's data and supplier's AI technology processing such data. It follows that customer and supplier must accurately regulate the ownership of the IP rights in the relevant data and technologies within the scope of their relationship. What should be particularly considered by the contracting parties is the ownership of data, databases and of any other protectable item of both parties existing before entering into the contractual relationship (background IP). The parties should also regulate the ownership of IP rights on the customisations of the AI system and on the protectable results thereof generated during the performance of the agreement, if any.

Artificial intelligence (AI) issues in intellectual property are becoming increasingly ubiquitous. For example, the US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) has issued "thousands of patents on AI technologies."1 The Persado Message Machine, which creates written content by way of data science and AI and is used by "[o]ver 250 of the world's most valuable brands," can generate marketing messages in 25 languages.2 And the University of Surrey in the UK just filed two patent applications--one that claims a "beverage container based on fractal geometry" and one that claims a device "that may help with search and rescue operations"--alleged to be the first inventions "created autonomously by artificial intelligence (AI) without a human inventor."3 Perhaps given these developments, the PTO has decided that the time is now to begin asking questions that broadly address how AI shifts our basic understanding of patent law concepts like inventorship, eligibility, enablement, and the level of ordinary skill in the art.