Intellectual Property Problems With Generative AI

Technology currently has a significant impact on almost every functional sector of the global economy. Not only has the physical effort been reduced, but so has the rate at which everything is finished, potentially allowing firms to accomplish more in less time. This has also enhanced corporate operating models since more can be completed with less money, time, and energy, allowing the remaining resources to be used for more productive tasks. Artificial intelligence is one of the most cutting-edge and astounding technologies being implemented by enterprises, and generative AI is one of its most generally acclaimed tools. Yet, there may be certain intellectual property issues with generative AI that most of us are not aware of, as addressed in this Harvard Business Review article.

One of the issues raised in the article is that, in the long run, AI developers will need to take the initiative in terms of how they acquire their data, and investors will need to know the source of the data. Artists now have the ability to opt out of the next-generation picture generator; however, this may place the onus on content producers to actively safeguard their IP rather than forcing AI developers to secure the IP to the work prior to utilizing it. Given the possible intellectual property risks associated with generative AI, the article suggests that both individual content producers and brands that create content should take efforts to assess and safeguard their intellectual property portfolios. According to the article, content creators should actively monitor digital and social networks for the appearance of works that may be taken from their own. The article also discusses how trademark and trade dress monitoring may need to change in order to analyze the style of derivative works that may have resulted from being trained on a specific collection of a brand’s pictures. As a result, even if crucial features such as a logo or a certain color are missing from an AI-generated image, other artistic aspects may indicate that prominent portions of a brand’s content were used to create a derivative piece. Lastly, the article suggests that firms should analyze their transaction conditions in order to build safeguards into contracts. If either party is employing generative AI, firms should include disclosures in their vendor and customer agreements (for bespoke services and product delivery) to ensure that intellectual property rights are recognized and safeguarded on both sides of the table. It is also critical to understand how each party would support the registration of authorship and ownership of such works, the article suggests.

While it is only because of the rise of technology that we now have various tools for successful tasks and time management, this often comes at the expense of intellectual property risk. The examples above show how generative AI can cause intellectual property difficulties and how businesses can cope with them.