Login | December 15, 2024
AI lands in the 2024 Akron Law IP conference
RICHARD WEINER
Technology for Lawyers
Published: May 3, 2024
Artificial Intelligence took center stage at both the opening and closing of the 26th Annual University of Akron School of Law Symposium on Intellectual Property Law and Policy, which was held at the school’s student center on March 25.
With 125 attendees, including several law students affiliated with the law school’s Center for Intellectual Property Law & Technology, the symposium was a ringing success.
The keynote address featured the return to the symposium of Andrei Iancu, the former director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Iancu had previously addressed the symposium when he was director of the USPTO. He is currently a partner in the intellectual property side of Sullivan & Cromwell LLP.
"We were delighted to have former USPTO director Iancu as our keynote speaker,” said Mark Schultz, chair of the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company intellectual property law program and director of the intellectual property and technology law program. "Our purpose in hosting the annual symposium is to provide a high-quality program that attracts IP law practitioners while giving our students the opportunity to learn from and network with them. We definitely achieved that again this year.”
The symposium began and ended with comments and discussions on the role(s) of artificial intelligence in the IP world, including the admission by most of the presenters that that role is far from understood at the current juncture.
The opening panel, on “Developing Guidelines for Ethical and Effective Use of AI,” was moderated by North Canton IP lawyer Jon Wood, with participants Charles Boudreau, judge of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, USPTO, John Cheek, vice president for IP and legal operations at Tenneco and attorneys Larry Drasner and Sergey Vernyuk.
In intellectual property practice, most of the current effect of AI in IP is in the realm of imitating artists, both musical and visual, and the effect that might have on copyright ownership.
Wood started by pegging the actual mechanics of AI: That it is good in a general search, but that it is basically just a search engine that talks. In other words, he said, “it fills in and guesses.”
Drasner ruminated on the topic of when a law firm could or should use it and stated another obvious fact: The court system can barely use or understand current technology, much less something like AI.
So that when IP courts say that no non-human can receive a patent, we are looking at “an ambiguous future.”
He also noted that AI would not be good for patents (in the way that it can be used for text, music or visual arts), since it does not actually produce a product of and by itself. It could produce blueprints or 3-D printer programs, but not an actual product.
In other words, as he added toward the end of the panel, AI cannot understand the concept of “value,” as it would be understood by patent lawyers evaluating a potential patent for a client.
John Clark, formerly of Caterpillar, stated that IP law practice will “never be replaced by AI:” as in, AI is simply too complex and requires too much specialized knowledge to be replaced by any computer much less a set of algorithms that traffic in guesswork.
Clark said that there were nearly 30 AI bills pending in Congress and wondered if AI would make takedown notices more difficult.
Among other topics, Judge Boudreau wondered if an AI could be a co-inventor with a human being, noted President Biden’s executive order on AI, and brought the conference down to earth with a mention of the ethical considerations of attorney’s use of artificial intelligence.
The rest of the conference presentations centered on more traditional IP topics.
Following the AI discussion was a panel on the use of noncompetes moderated by Camilla Hrdy, professor of IP law at the UA law school.
Later presentations included a panel on early results from the new supranational Universal Patent Court (UPC), a presentation and discussion on the Copyright Small Claims Court, a presentation on the CHIPS and Science Act that concentrated on the effect of that new law on Ohio tech manufacturing, a discussion on IP actions at the International Trade Commission, and a presentation on Trademarks and Free Speech.
Iancu’s keynote address, given over lunch, covered a number of topics-- including a call for an update on the patent process, much of which he noted, has been unchanged since 1793.
Speaking of James Madison and the people who wrote the Patent Act in 1793, he said “[a]s brilliant as those guys were, they still did not anticipate DNA diagnostic testing, artificial intelligence, computer programming, and the like. Congress cannot abdicate its responsibilities here. They need to modernize this statute.”
At the same time, he said, he oversaw a recent study that found that 70% of members of Congress had no interest in patent law or in IP in general at all.
Near the end of his presentation, Iancu noted that he pretty much had to talk about AI, since it was the topic of the day and the year.
He primarily concentrated that part of his talk on the recent court and administrative decisions that held very strongly that an AI-produced document or piece of art could not be copyrighted, since it was not produced by a human being.
He also speculated about AI being used to try to create patentable manufacturing processes like blueprints—although it would seem that a printed product like a blueprint would be subject to copyright laws, not patent laws.
And Iancu ended with a shoutout to the area residents who are working in IP, both in academics and in business.
“You have a remarkable thing going on here in Akron, Cleveland and in the Ohio area,” he said. “You people in this room, we put it together and understand the link. You have IP and you have the innovation, and you have it all. We need to educate everybody else about that critical connection.”
All in all, another very successful IP conference from one of the country’s leading IP law schools.