Intellectual Property Rights and AI have also entered an era where they are met at a conjunction and concerns regarding the same are arising. The entire point of the concern revolves around the question of innovation and originality as to whether such ideas that have been produced by AI actually holda sufficient amount of credibility with the intention of achieving patent and copyright along with humanistic innovation. The core point is that it isthe human brain thatconducts scrutiny and procures ingenious ideas and the algorithms have been fed into AI by humans only.
Humans made AI to command over AI for beneficial outputs but giving AI the authority to command over humans can be disastrous because AI is producing and creating only what has been fed to them, we must not forget that AI mimics human intelligence and its quotient but cannot really succeed in securing copyright and patent in the legal regime because AI lacks originality and the quotient of emotionality which will decline the arrival of innovative outputs. The suggestive part can be confinedto a suggestion of keeping the commands and control of AI in human hands but not humans in AI and software’s hands.[1]
The Emergence Of AI And Its Arrival In The Ipr Regime
As AI began to evolve, so did the need to understand and evaluate it. British logician and computer pioneer Alan Turing began exploring machine intelligence in the 1930s. In the 1950s, he questioned whether a machine has the ability to think and introduced central concepts of AI. The intersection of AI-generated work and copyright law poses several challenges, reigniting the ongoing debate about how AI-generated content is treated under the law.
In today’s world AI has created a realm where people are highly dependent upon AI due to its brilliant efficiency in providing beneficiary outputs which is affecting not only the society but the IPR regime as well. The question of credibility and originality arises as people are concerned that if AI will enter in IPR regime as well then how complicated will be the consequences? Another AI tool is ChatGPT which can give explanations and answers to questions and generate text. Definitely AI has made our lives truly simple but it has created several challenges when it comes to copyright law. [2]
Copyright laws in India even today do not find it necessary to address the need for copyright registration or granting protection to AI considering AI as an author or credible enough to hold the ownership. In 161st report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee, reviewing the Indian Intellectual Property Rights regime two years ago, recommended creating a separate category of rights for Artificial Intelligence and related innovations, suggesting solutions for their protection as intellectual property rights.
In June, Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar stated the government’s intent to regulate artificial intelligence to safeguard “digital citizens.” Since the primary requirement for achieving and protecting copyright is originality and creativity but the definition of originality is still not defined in the Copyrights Act itsthe Judge’s prudence to detect the originality of the work hence again a major reason why AI-generated content is still not recognised.[3]
The Copyright Act, 1957
Originality is the key element for protecting an intellect in Intellectual Property Rights. The Copyright Act, 1957 essentially deals with granting protection to the original and creative intellect of an author who deserves to hold the ownership of a particular intellectual property as copyright is the legal right of the owner/author of intellectual property. This Act deals with the laws pertaining to the copyright. Section 13 of the Indian Copyright Act essentially states that this act accords copyright protection for ”original literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works.” The Courts itself ascertain whether a work is eligible to be original enough.
AI generated content might not meet the eligibility criteria for being an author of an original intellect because the data and algorithms fed in AI are precedent sources. The Copyright Act in India was amended in 1994 to include computer-generated works, including literary, dramatic, musical, or artistic works. Section 2(d)(v) was introduced in the act to define the authorship of such works as “the person who causes the work to be created.” [4] A case of copyright claim by CBSE over question papers, the Delhi High Court said that authorship can only be attributed to natural persons, and copyright cannot be asserted without evidence of individual involvement in the framing of those question papers. There are other important cases as well including a case where the Delhi High Court refused to recognise the copyright claim over computer-generated lists due to lack of human intervention.
The RAGHAV Case
In the year 2020, the Indian Copyright Office faced a critical case of AI system namely RAGHAV. It involves its attempt to secure copyright registration for an artwork called ”Suryast”. It was rejected due to the findings of lacunae in the presence of a human author, but the painting was later granted protection when a natural person was named as a co-author alongside ‘RAGHAV’. Subsequently, a withdrawal notice was issued, seeking clarity on the legal status of RAGHAV as it was reflecting ambiguity regarding AI’s qualification as an artist under the Copyright Act.[5]
The Indian copyright law has a requirement for strict human authorship. According to Indian copyright law, a work must be authored by a human in order to be eligible to claim copyright protection. While the Copyright Act, 1957 acknowledges creators of computer-generated works, the legal status of AI-generated content per se remains unclear.
The Patents Act, 1970
A patentis a government grant to an inventor of the right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention, usually for a limited period. Patents are granted for new and useful machines, manufactured products, and industrial processes and for significant improvements of existing ones. Patents also are granted for new chemical compounds, foods, and medicinal products, as well as for the processes used to produce them. The first recorded patent for an industrial invention was granted in 1421 in Florence to the architect and engineer Filippo Brunelleschi.
The Patents Act, 1970 essentially deals with the laws relating to providing patents for an invention. Section 6 of this Act essentially deals with the ”persons entitled to apply for patents” and even this Act does not really recognizeAI-generated work as an invention as it essentially states ”any person” in every clause.[6] ”The right balance must be struck between awarding patent protection to promote human ingenuity and investment for AI-assisted inventions while not unnecessarily locking up innovation for future developments,” Patent and Trademark Office director Kathi Vidal said in a blog post. A business technique or mathematical, algorithm or computer program, is not considered to be an invention, according to Section 3(k) of the Indian Patents Act. It places limitations on the general patentability of computer programs.
The Delhi High Court (DHC) ruled in a writ petition challenging the IPAB’s decision to deny Ferid Allani a patent on a “method and device for accessing information sources and services on the web” that the IPAB’s decision will be based on “technical effect” and “technical contribution.” [7]Therefore, the technologies will qualify for consideration for the patent grant if they can solve a technological problem through technical means. The major cause of the same is that they possess a mathematical nature but are not patentable essentially. It’s the crucial reason why a lot of Indian citizens who did not get patentsfor their inventions in India are applying in the USA.
Conclusion
The Acts, statutes and laws were made for humans at that particular point of time being unaware of the fact that one day we might need AI who would compete with humans in every facet of our life. AI-generated content and its concerns in the IPR regime is truly something new to be addressed by our lawmakers and judiciary but it is inevitable to resist the use of AI completely. AI has been a part of our lives that is indubitable to remove but we can minimize its use to an extent because we cannot really deny the fact that AI was created by humans, programmed by humans, and controlled by humans because the data and algorithms which has been inserted into it is taken from the precedent sources only and AI alone does not carry the capacity to create absolutely new and fresh content because it requires commands and assistance of humans in order to perform efficaciously so only a human can insert the capacity into an AI to perform or to generate any sort of function or information.
The history of copyrights and patents has been simple as it included only humans but since time has passed several challenges have arisen in front of the judiciary as well where conflicts are surrounded by recognition of AI in the IPR regime but the question of originality and creativity of the intellect of the author/owner still lies in the legal regime as it is not easy to include AI as ”natural persons”. Major complications can arise for people who use AI for the generation of texts and other purposes. Every aspect has positive and negative dimensions hence optimal use of everything is required to avoid the disastrous repercussions. AI must not hold more importance than humans as massive reliance on machines can be harmful to us. Moreover, in the near future we can seedevelopments in the field of Intellectual Property Rights in India.
[1]‘AI In Education: Introduction » Britannica’ (Britannica, 7 August 2023) <https://britannicaeducation.com/blog/ai-in-education/#:~:text=As%20AI%20began%20to%20evolve,introduced%20central%20concepts%20of%20AI.> accessed 10 May 2024.
[2]Rishabh Sharma, ‘Who owns AI-generated works? Here’s what the laws say on copyright issue’ (India Today, 22 September 2023) <www.indiatoday.in/law/story/chatgpt-ai-generated-content-copyright-ownership-complexities-india-2439165-2023-09-22> accessed 10 May 2024.
[3]Pratyusha Ganesh Vishruti Chauhan, ‘Artificial Intelligence in IPR – a door to future – iPleaders’ (iPleaders, 14 April 2021) <https://blog.ipleaders.in/artificial-intelligence-ipr-door-future/> accessed 10 May 2024.
[4]THE COPYRIGHT ACT, 1957, No 14 of 1957, 4 June 1957 (India), XXXX.
[5]Rishabh Sharma, ‘Who owns AI-generated works? Here’s what the laws say on copyright issue’ (India Today, 22 September 2023) <www.indiatoday.in/law/story/chatgpt-ai-generated-content-copyright-ownership-complexities-india-2439165-2023-09-22> accessed 10 May 2024.
[6]‘The Patents Act, 1970’ (19 July 1970) <https://ipindia.gov.in/writereaddata/Portal/IPOAct/1_31_1_patent-act-1970-11march2015.pdf> accessed 10 May 2024.
[7]Aditi Bhushan, ‘Does AI Invention Qualifies Under Indian Patent Law?’ (Global Patent Services in India by Reputed IP Firm, 6 January 2023) <www.globalpatentfiling.com/blog/Ai-Generated-Inventions-And-Its-Patentibility-Under-Patent-Law#:~:text=INVENTORSHIP%20&%20OWNERSHIP%20OF%20AI%20INVENTIONS&text=The%20government%20is%20included%20under,inventor%20on%20a%20patent,%20though> accessed 10 May 2024.
Author Name- MEGHNA BISHT
