Zurich | AI & IP
Just returned from Zurich where I spoke at a multilateral meeting on AI and IP, co-organized by the University of Zurich’s Center for IP & Competition Law (CIPCO) and the Swiss Federal Institute of IP (IPI), Switzerland’s national IP agency. Like many of you venturing abroad this summer, it was my first trip abroad in over two and a half years!
In my keynote address on enforcement issues, I observed that each country must balance internal stakeholder interests with its national aspirations. For example, China and the US have different histories and legal traditions from each other and from smaller nations, like Singapore and Switzerland.
I observed governments are actively seeking to promote innovation through AI-friendly initiatives. One example is the USPTO’s AI /ET Partnership, focusing on quantum computing, synthetic biology, blockchain, and virtual reality. Another is Singapore’s AI toolkit companies can use to show AI systems are accountable, transparent, safe and do not discriminate based on attributes such as race or gender, which was recently launched in Davos at the World Economic Forum in May. As blocks become available, governments put them into play and then continue to build a regulatory system on that. These approaches show a general preference for incremental and informed evolution rather than overturning established precedent and settled business expectations.
Trust-building between stakeholders and across borders will be key in the next lap. Data is the new oil. Without trust, businesses and governments will not have the data they need to train their algorithms properly and provide next-generation services to all of us as consumers and citizens.
In this context, my remarks addressed three key questions:
How does AI change IP infringement?
How does AI change IP exemptions?
How does AI change collective rights management?
Kudos to Prof. Dr. Peter Picht, Chairman, Center for Intellectual Property and Competition, and Prof. Dr. Felix Addor, Deputy Director General and General Counsel of the IPI, as well as Head of Legal & International Affairs Division, for assembling a slate of international representatives from IP offices, academia, and industry willing and able to engage in the rigorous conversations that this important topic deserves.
Photos (Clockwise): Delivering my keynote, view from the conference hotel, with Alessandro Curioni, VP Europe and Africa and Director IBM Research and Felix Addor, with participants on an impromptu tour of the university by Prof. Dr. Florent Thouvenin, the university’s beautiful foyer (above), and the law library (below), and a selfie with Beat Weibel, Chief IP Counsel & Group Senior Vice President, Siemens, Wissenschaftliche Assistentin Caroline Kopp and Lehrassistent Valerie Brunner.
