As of July 8, the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) is scheduled to begin full enforcement of its Data Security Program (“DSP”) and the recently issued Bulk Data Rule after its 90-day limited enforcement policy expires, ushering in “full compliance” requirements for U.S. companies and individuals.[1]
This is the third part of our four-part series on the EUIPO study on GenAI and copyright. Read parts 1 and 2.
This third part of the four-part series offers four key takeaways on GenAI output, highlighting critical issues around retrieval augmented generation (RAG), transparency solutions, copyright retention concerns and emerging technical remedies.
This is the second part of our four-part series on the EUIPO study on GenAI and copyright. Read part 1.
In this second part of our four-part series exploring the EUIPO study on GenAI and copyright, we set out our key takeaways regarding GenAI inputs, including findings on the evolving interpretation of the legal text and data mining (TDM) rights reservation regime and existing opt-out measures.
This is the first part of four-part series on the EUIPO study on GenAI and copyright. See here for
On 5 September 2024, the EU, UK and US joined seven other states[1] in signing the Council of Europe Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law (“Treaty”) – the first international treaty governing the safe use of artificial intelligence (‘‘AI’’).[2] The Treaty remains subject to ratification, acceptance or approval by each signatory and will enter into force on the first day of the month following a period of three months after the date on which five signatories, including at least three Council of Europe member states, have ratified it. Any state worldwide is eligible to join the Treaty, subject to the unanimous approval of the signatories, and to commit to complying with its provisions. The Treaty is expected to have a positive impact on international cooperation on addressing AI-related risks.
As inventors, attorneys and patent examiners grapple with the impacts of AI on patents, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (the “USPTO”) has released guidance concerning the subject matter patent eligibility of inventions that relate to AI technology.[1] The impetus for this guidance was President Biden’s Executive Order on Safe, Secure and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence, which directed the USPTO to issue guidance to patent examiners and applicants regarding patent subject matter eligibility in order to address innovation in AI and other critical and emerging technologies.
Last week, in Vidal v. Elster, the Supreme Court upheld the Lanham Act’s prohibition against registering a trademark that includes a living person’s name without their consent.[1] This case is the latest in a trilogy of challenges to the constitutionality of trademark registration bars in the Lanham Act. The Court previously struck down as unconstitutional the clauses in Section 2(c) prohibiting registration of marks constituting “disparagement” and “immoral or scandalous matter.”[2] In a departure from those decisions, the Court upheld the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s refusal to register a trademark for “Trump Too Small”—a piece of political commentary that the applicant sought to use on apparel to criticize a government official. The Court reasoned that, unlike the other provisions, the “names” prohibition is viewpoint-neutral, and thus does not violate any First Amendment right.
There has been a push at the state and federal level to regulate AI-generated deepfakes that use the voices and likenesses of real people without their approval. This legislative momentum stems from a series of high profile incidents involving deepfakes that garnered public attention and concern. Last year, an AI-generated song entitled “Heart on My Sleeve” simulated the voices of recording artists Drake and The Weeknd. The song briefly went viral before being pulled from streaming services following objections from the artists’ music label. Another incident involved an advertisement for dental services that used an AI-generated Tom Hanks to make the sales pitch. As AI becomes more sophisticated and accessible to the general public, it has raised concerns over the misappropriation of people’s personas. In recent months, several states have introduced legislation targeting the use of deepfakes to spread election-related misinformation. At the federal level, both the House and Senate are considering a federal right of publicity that would give individuals a private right of action. At the state level, Tennessee has become the first state update its right of publicity laws targeted towards the music industry, signing the Ensuring Likeness Voice and Image Security (the “ELVIS Act”) into law on March 21, 2024, which takes effect July 1, 2024.
The following post was originally included as part of our recently published memorandum “Selected Issues for Boards of Directors in 2024”.
Artificial Intelligence (AI), and in particular, generative AI, will continue to be an issue in the year to come, as new laws and regulations, agency guidance, continuing and additional litigation on AI and new AI-related partnerships will prompt headlines and require companies to continually think about these issues.
This third part of our four-part series on using synthetic data to train AI models explores the interplay between synthetic data training sets, the EU Copyright Directive and the forthcoming EU AI Act.