Copyright in AI-generated works: Lessons from recent developments in patent law

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Matulionyte, Rita, Lee, Jyh-An
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Matulionyte, Rita
Lee, Jyh-An
author_facet Matulionyte, Rita
Lee, Jyh-An
contents In Thaler v The Comptroller-General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks (DABUS), Smith J. held that an AI owner can possibly claim patent ownership over an AI-generated invention based on their ownership and control of the AI system. This AI-owner approach reveals a new option to allocate property rights over AI-generated output. While this judgment was primarily about inventorship and ownership of AI-generated invention in patent law, it has important implications for copyright law. After analysing the weaknesses of applying existing judicial approaches to copyright ownership of AI-generated works, this paper examines whether the AI-owner approach is a better option for determining copyright ownership of AI-generated works. The paper argues that while contracts can be used to work around the AI-owner approach in scenarios where users want to commercially exploit the outputs, this approach still provides more certainty and less transaction costs for relevant parties than other approaches proposed so far.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2503_04738
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Copyright in AI-generated works: Lessons from recent developments in patent law
Matulionyte, Rita
Lee, Jyh-An
Computers and Society
Artificial Intelligence
In Thaler v The Comptroller-General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks (DABUS), Smith J. held that an AI owner can possibly claim patent ownership over an AI-generated invention based on their ownership and control of the AI system. This AI-owner approach reveals a new option to allocate property rights over AI-generated output. While this judgment was primarily about inventorship and ownership of AI-generated invention in patent law, it has important implications for copyright law. After analysing the weaknesses of applying existing judicial approaches to copyright ownership of AI-generated works, this paper examines whether the AI-owner approach is a better option for determining copyright ownership of AI-generated works. The paper argues that while contracts can be used to work around the AI-owner approach in scenarios where users want to commercially exploit the outputs, this approach still provides more certainty and less transaction costs for relevant parties than other approaches proposed so far.
title Copyright in AI-generated works: Lessons from recent developments in patent law
topic Computers and Society
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.04738