AI-Generated Fashion Designs: Who or What Owns the Goods?

As artificial intelligence (“AI”) becomes an increasingly prevalent tool in a plethora of industries in today’s society, analyzing the potential legal implications attached to AI-generated works is becoming more popular. One of the industries impacted by AI is fashion. AI tools and devices are currently being used in the fashion industry to create fashion models, fabric designs, and clothing. An AI device’s ability to generate fashion designs raises the question of who will own the copyrights of the fashion designs. Will it be the fashion designer who hires or contracts with the AI device programmer? Will it be the programmer? Or will it be the AI device itself? Designers invest a lot of talent, time, and finances into designing and creating each article of clothing and accessory it releases to the public; yet, under the current copyright standards, designers will not likely be considered the authors of their creations. Ultimately, this Note makes policy proposals for future copyright legislation within the United States, particularly recommending that AI-generated and AI-assisted designs be copyrightable and owned by the designers who purchase the AI device

You can patent that? Are patents on computer programs and business methods good for the new economy?

In other parts of the economy, firms are increasingly turning to patents to protect not just physical inventions but more abstract ones such as computer programs or ways of doing business. Just two decades ago such patents would have been impossible to obtain, let alone enforce. In "You Can Patent That? Are Patents on Computer Programs and Business Methods Good for the New Economy?" Bob Hunt describes the changes in patent law that have given rise to this phenomenon.Patents ; Computers

Ready, Set, Mark Your Patented Software!

The question of whether software programs embodying patented processes need to be marked in accordance with the marking requirement as set forth under 35 U.S.C. § 287 is an unanswered issue. This article first analyzes the marking requirement in the United States patent system and then goes on to survey the rocky history of patents on software innovations. After noting that neither the Supreme Court nor the Federal Circuit has directly decided the issue of the applicability of the Marking Statute to software programs, the article analyzes recent federal district court and Federal Circuit cases, ultimately reasoning that the Federal Circuit would likely conclude that software programs embodying patented processes need to comply with the marking requirement of 35 U.S.C. § 287. Finally, the article concludes by discussing the ramifications of the Marking Statute to software patents and the software industry

Alternative Software Protection in view of In re Bilski

The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit\u27s (CAFC) en banc decision, In re Bilski, redefined the standard for patenting processes including business methods and computer software. In Bilski, the Federal Circuit departed from the useful, concrete, and tangible result test it had established in State Street Bank & Trust Co. v. SignatureFinancialGroup,Inc., which had been the standard for the past ten years. The Federal Circuit returned to a test articulated nearly 40 years ago by the Supreme Court in Gottschalk v. Benson, and clarified that State Street was never intended to supplant the Supreme Court\u27s test. , Under this revived Supreme Court test, to be patent-eligible a claimed process must 1) be tied to a particular machine or apparatus or 2) transform a particular article into a different state or thing

Alternative Software Protection in View of In re Bilski

The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit\u27s (CAFC) en banc decision, In re Bilski, redefined the standard for patenting processes including business methods and computer software. In Bilski, the Federal Circuit departed from the useful, concrete, and tangible result test it had established in State Street Bank & Trust Co. v. SignatureFinancialGroup,Inc., which had been the standard for the past ten years. The Federal Circuit returned to a test articulated nearly 40 years ago by the Supreme Court in Gottschalk v. Benson, and clarified that State Street was never intended to supplant the Supreme Court\u27s test. , Under this revived Supreme Court test, to be patent-eligible a claimed process must 1) be tied to a particular machine or apparatus or 2) transform a particular article into a different state or thing

The AI Author in Litigation

Many scholars have posited whether a computer possessing Artificial Intelligence (AI) could be considered an author as defined per the Copyright Act of 1976. What was once a thought experiment is now becoming reality. To date, scholarship has focused primarily been on whether an AI meets the requirements of authorship from a purely objective legal framework or whether an AI could be an author based on the doctrines of incentives, independent creation, and creativity. However, a burden inherent in the rights and liabilities of authorship is the ability to be held liable if that author’s expressive work is infringing on another’s. A cause of action is meaningless if a copyright owner cannot enforce it by suing the infringer or if the infringer is judgement-proof. Thus, when contemplating whether an emancipated AI—or any non-human—can be an author under the Copyright Act, part of that examination should be whether the AI which created the work can sue or be sued for infringement. This article considers issues from the theoretical, like civil procedure and remedies, to the practical, such as legal representation and discovery. How is an AI served with a lawsuit? What would be an adequate, enforceable remedy for an AI’s infringement? Is an AI even bound by our laws? Additional questions—and procedural barriers—are raised when considering other roles an AI might play in an infringement action: as a witness, a co-party, or even a plaintiff seeking to protect its own creative expression. This morass of legal headaches goes beyond any doctrinal issues regarding authorship, and provide ample reason to keep legal authorship in the hands of humans or entities controlled by humans—at least until legal procedure catches up to technological realities and possibilities for litigation that AI parties present