IP experts express concern over “boundless” potential of AI
The story of AI is often a cautionary tale and continues to spark debate across the globe. While many IP professionals believe that intellectual property should keep people at its core, for others AI is a useful tool that should be utilised – if it means that doing so would yield better outcomes for legal professionals and their clients.
As aptly put by Cliff Hyra of Fresh IP, “the potential of AI – good and bad – is literally boundless”. It is therefore crucial to examine the ethical and unethical uses of AI within the context of intellectual property – and analyse the reasons behind the disparity of opinion among this year’s Strategy 300 Global Leaders – as this will aid industry experts in maintaining best practices and increase their awareness of the risk factors that inevitably arise when incorporating AI into IP strategies.
Making waves in the tech space
For some, there is no doubt that AI can be used ethically and for positive outcomes. Justin Delfino of Evalueserve posits that if AI is used to automate “mundane” tasks, workers can better utilise their time to “hinge on creativity” that might have a more meaningful impact on the IP sphere instead of spending more time than necessary carrying out basic or operational legal tasks.
Capitalising on AI’s capability for “predictive analytics” can also save uncertainty and potential financial burdens that come with that uncertainty, says Leann Pinto of IPwe.
AI’s role in biotechnology – and its capacity to improve people’s health as a result – is a great example of a way in which industry professionals should take advantage of AI. Martin MacLean of Mathys & Squire advocates for its use “in the context of predictive crystal structure modelling and epitope mapping, and predictive binding kinetics (eg HLA: T-cells) for use in the manufacture of personalised cancer vaccines”, adding that AI has made a “big splash” in this area. Not only is this extremely beneficial for the medical community, but also for the IP experts involved in protecting these discoveries and those whose health will benefit from the technology.
Elsewhere in the tech sphere, AI is helping IP experts and their clients to understand radically complex ideas so as to better strategise how to protect them. Bruce Rubinger of Global Prior Art recently overcame a hurdle in the LiDAR technology space when his client was struggling to understand the concept. “An AI classifier identified five key technologies, which allowed the client to focus its efforts on the most promising ones while reducing spending on older, poor-performing technology,” said Rubinger.
Rouse’s Fabrice Mattei champions AI’s role in combatting the climate crisis as an ethical use of the technology that is widely beneficial not only for patent experts but for the global population. As the firm’s head of climate change, he reports from the front line that AI addresses and mitigates the effects of climate change, using algorithms to “analyse historical climate data to make better short-term and long-term climate predictions”. He further reveals that Rouse has drafted patents in the “operation of renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar farms, by forecasting energy production, managing grid integration and increasing energy efficiency” with the help of AI.
Breaking down barriers
AI’s capacity to broaden a client pool by breaking down language barriers is a sure-fire way to increase the volume and scope of clientele that IP professionals can help, Steven Zou of Liu Shen & Associates insists. Using AI to save time and resources allows experts to better maintain “client relationships that require human-to-human connection” and develop these in a more “professional and refined way”, he argues.
But AI can be biased, lack cybersecurity and complicate ownership
However, AI is far from a silver bullet – especially when it comes to data protection, privacy and cybersecurity. Börge Seeger of Neuwerk Rechtsanwalte states that generative AI is “fundamentally changing the legal landscape at the moment, and that includes the data protection world”, while Elizabeth Barnhard of Leason Ellis expresses concerns that “using publicly available AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Bing and Bard presents significant ethical risks for lawyers who are obligated to preserve clients’ confidential information”.
What’s more, some maintain that AI poses a major risk for data bias, particularly when making hiring decisions. Delfino asserts that AI’s productive capabilities can easily be undermined without “scrupulous attention to diverse and representative data to prevent the perpetuation of biased decisions”. Delfino regrets that this would give rise to “legal and ethical conundrums”.
Challenges surrounding ownership and the originality of content ‘created’ by generative AI is perhaps the most crucial of all for IP professionals. As put by Efrat Kasznik of Foresight Valuation Group, “ownership affords economic benefits and control over monetisation”. This is impossible to manage if there is dispute about whether the AI owns the material, or whether it is the property of the individual who provided the learning materials that enabled the AI to do its job.
On the other hand, some IP experts believe that AI can in fact have ownership of intellectual property. BCF’s Ilya Kalnish posits that AI’s work can be “at least partly original in itself and even inventive” in some cases. However, as countries continue to hand down conflicting judgments about AI ownership, consensus on this issue is still a long way off.
Looking ahead – more problems than AI can solve?
In Ocean Tomo’s Ozer Teitelbaum’s gesture to the future, he says “only slightly over the horizon – if not upon us already – I envision a plethora of IP issues increasing as the commercialisation of AI gains momentum in the marketplace”. For Neo IP’s JiNan Glasgow George, this is already a reality with the “rapid commercial impact following the release of ChatGPT” and the “accelerated AI applications” her firm has seen as a result.
The ethical considerations of AI – whether these are how it can be utilised for the good of the IP community or how to avoid bias, breaches and ownership spats – should remain at the forefront of any decision about the capacity in which to use this “boundless” tool. Doing so will help industry experts to avoid, as Gabe Sukman of ClearstoneIP puts it, “swinging a powerful hammer where there is no nail”.
IAM Strategy 300 Global Leaders 2024 is IAM’s annual opportunity to showcase the world’s leading IP luminaries who offer their insight into the industry’s most pressing topics and is available to read here.