Synopsis
All sectors are influenced by artificial intelligence (“AI”) technologies, disrupting our legal framework for intellectual property.
Medicine is one of examples benefiting from big data analysis and AI predictions. Black-box medicine is a precision/personalized medicine using AI to analyse large data sets of health information, seeking patterns, predictions, and recommendations for each and every patient. Given the US Supreme Court’s decision in Mayo v. Prometheus denying the patentability of a new diagnostic method, our IP system will have to figure out how to respond to a substantial number of dosage regimens and biological correlations discovered by big data analysis. Even if AI generated discoveries are regarded as patentable subject matter, our patent system will have to figure out who will be entitled to patent registration: the AI programmer, the AI trainer, the data set provider, the medical doctor operating the AI, or the AI system itself?
Similar issues arise in art, music, literature, game, journalism and almost all other sectors as well. With AI systems generating artistic and literary contents capable of attracting IP protection, our copyright system will have to figure out who is the author and who owns copyright of these contents. During the course of AI-based contents generation, our copyright system will face a lot of challenging issues such as who is liable for infringement of other’s copyright and other rights like privacy. When an AI system wants to take a license to use an existing content, our copyright system will have to answer who will be the contracting parties and how will the contract be concluded and so on.
During the course of his lecture, Prof. Jong would like to discuss fundamental questions regarding the creative capability of artificial intelligence: Can an AI think like a human? Can an AI create contents like a human author?
In addition, the importance of big data or data sets may not be over-emphasized. Many recent advances in AI have been made possible mainly by the enormous amount of data. In this sense, Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Alibaba have a great advantage or potentially a monopolistic position in providing their service based on big data analysis. Given the importance of data, many governments make a substantial amount of public data available to the public. For example, the US system for “Public Access to Court Electronic Records” is designed to provide judicial decisions and relevant litigation materials electronically available to the public. Clearly a wonderful system for big data analysis in the legal profession. However, what happens if the data become prohibitively costly?
Since AI heavily relies on big data or data sets, their legal protection becomes increasingly important. However, it is not clear whether they are qualified as copyrightable compilation under Feist v. Rural. The next question could be whether big data or data sets are worth a sui generis protection such as a database right. It remains to be seen how AI industry wold respond to the Copyright Act of Korea, which provides database producers or big data owners with some sort of neighbouring rights.
Speaker
Sang-Jo JONG is a Professor at Seoul National University School of Law. He graduated from Seoul National University and completed his Ph.D. studies at the London School of Economics. He is a member of the Korean Academy of Science and Technology, the chairman of the committee for IP of KOFST, a member of the steering committee of the Judicial Research and Training Institute in Korea, a member of the Open Data Mediation Committee, and the chairman of the Korean Game Law and Policy Society.
Chair
Kung-Chung LIU holds an LL.B. and LL.M. from National Taiwan University and a Doctorate from the Ludwig Maximilian Universitaet (University of Munich). He was a Research Fellow at Academia Sinica, Taiwan until 2017. In 2003, he was a Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Law of the National University of Singapore and a Visiting Senior Research Fellow for the IP Academy of Singapore. Professor Liu has served as one of the founding Commissioners of the National Communications Commission in Taiwan between 2006 and 2007. In 2014-15, he was a Visiting Professor at the School of Law, Singapore Management University, and the Founding Director of the Applied Research Centre for Intellectual Assets and the Law in Asia (ARCIALA). In addition, he has been co-appointed Professor at the Renmin University, China (2017), and the Graduate Institute of Technology, Innovation & Intellectual Property Management, National Chengchi University, Taiwan (since 2010).
This event is by invitation only.
Last updated on 08 Jan 2018 .
