Patent Law – Fit for an (emotional) AI age?

It is generally accepted that ‘modern’ UK patent law took root in the (first) steam-driven industrial revolution of the 18th century. On the whole, the basic tenets of patent law established back then seemed to flex and so weather the next two industrial revolutions that followed.

But now, as we find ourselves in what is dubbed ‘4IR’ or ‘Industry 4.0’, speculation abounds over the suitability of current patent law in an AI-driven world. Ahead of stakeholder consultations, the previous UK government acknowledged that patent law might need revision in order to ‘unleash the transformational power of Artificial Intelligence’, but what is the optimal patent protection for AI systems and AI-assisted inventions? And how different might it look from the status quo?

At a conference, entitled ‘AI Frontiers in Intellectual Property Law: Navigating the Future’ held at QMIPIR, a neighbouring institution, earlier this year, Lord Justice Richard Arnold identified a number of basic issues that patent law and policy should look to address, including:

• What activities does patent law need to incentivise, and where should the balance be struck if aiming to motivate technical innovation by applicants and to encourage public disclosure of inventions (to stimulate innovation by others)?
• How does the requirement of public disclosure work if an invention is made by machine learning (perhaps using non-public data), and how important is it?
• If we try to fit AI-generated inventions into the existing system, how will patent requirements, such as inventive step and sufficiency be applied?

Our expert panel will use these questions as the spring board to initiate a much-needed debate on this important area.

The UCL Institute of Brand and Innovation Law has brought together a distinguished panel to evaluate the adequacies of patent law in the AI-age.

• Virginia Driver, CPA, EPA, Page White Farrer
• Matt Hervey, Head of Legal and Policy at Human Native AI, General Editor of The Law of Artificial Intelligence
• Michael Prior, Deputy Director of Patents Policy, UKIPO
• Professor Noam Shemtov, Queen Mary University of London

Chair: Carter Eltzroth, Legal Director, DVB

17:30 Registration and theatre opens
18:00 Event begins
19:15 Q&A
19:30 Reception
This event will be held in-person but will also be live streamed.

Fees for this event are from £8-£35
Free places for UCL students and staff, full time academics, judiciary and government legal services.

Host or Publisher UCL Institute of Brand and Innovation Law (IBIL)