INTRODUCTION

In the recent years, there had been significant development in artificial intelligence. In simple words, artificial intelligence can be described as the intelligence or skills displayed by the machines. This is different from the natural intellect displayed by human beings. More often, artificial intelligence is created by human skills or knowledge. With the advancements in science, there have been many major inventions including robots that can walk, speak and even think like human beings.

Artificial intelligence systems possess the capability to be independent and creative; sometimes more creative than human beings. At an international level, there had been many products invented or rather created by the AI systems. Therefore, there is an existing dilemma regarding the authorship and ownership of the products created by artificial intelligence. This article would primarily deal with this issue from a legal perspective.

WHAT ARE THE APPLICABLE LAWS?

Artificial Intelligence is creating a lot of useful products in the technical field. So, whenever such an invention is made it becomes necessary that it is protected. The authorship and ownership of the creation must be well established. In India, the prominent legislation to make this happen has been the Indian Copyright Act, 1857.

INDIAN COPYRIGHT ACT, 1857

The definition of ‘author’ is given under section 2(d) of the Indian Copyright Act, 1857. According to the definition, “in relation to any literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work which is computer-generated, the person who causes the work to be created is the author of the work”[1]. But, computer algorithms are not coming under this definition. System generated or machine produced works are not provided registered copyrights. However, we have gone so far in the scientific field that machines create a number of products or works.

The major issue with 2(d) of the act is that in order to attain a copyright, the individual must satisfactorily come under the purview of “author” under the said section. But, can artificial intelligence be treated as a legal individual? This is another controversy as the world already witnessed instances like the robot Sophia being given the citizenship of Saudi Arabia (this robot was a legal person of Saudi Arabia).

So, the current legal framework under the Copyright Act, 1957 does not effectively deal with the creation/invention of works in which the actual contributor of the “expression” is not a human or a legal person[2]. Thus, when it comes to works that are created by artificial intelligence, their authorship would be a bone of contention as under Indian copyright laws[3].

PATENTS ACT, 1970

Patents Act basically deals with the new creations or inventions. This is another important legislation with regard to the intellectual property laws. Section 2 of the act provides the various definitions associated with patent rights. “Patentee” is defined under section 2(p) as the person for the time being entered on the register as the grantee of proprietor of the patent[4]. “Person interested” is defined under section 2(t) as a person engaged in, or in promoting, research in the same field as that to which the invention relates. Under both these definitions there is no mention of artificial intelligence[5]. It does not specify as to whether the term “person” includes only legal persons or whether it has any space for artificial beings.

Section 6 of the Patents Act deals with the persons entitled to patents. But, even here there is no mention of the status of the products created by artificial intelligence. Rather, there is no clue whether “true and first investor” includes only human beings or not.

SIGNIFICANT JUDGEMENTS

In Rupendra Kashyap v. Jiwan Publishing House Pvt. Ltd[6] it was held by the court that “in the context of question papers for an examination, that the author of the examination paper is a person who has compiled the questions; the person who does this compiling, is a natural person, a human being, and not an artificial person; Central Board of Secondary Education is not a natural person and it would be entitled to claim copyright in the examination papers only if it establishes and proves that it has engaged persons specifically for purposes of preparation of compilation, known as question papers, with a contract that copyright therein will vest in Central Board of Secondary Education”. Hence, CBSE not being a natural person was not entitled to copyrights.

Similarly, it was held in many other cases that juristic person is incapable of being the author of any work in which copyright may exist[7].

In the case of Naruto v Slater[8] held that, animals by virtue of the fact that they are not humans lack locus standi under Copyright Act to sue for infringement. Issue was related to copyright infringement of the selfies taken by a macaque.

In Eastern Book Company & Ors v. D.B. Modak & Anr[9], it was observed that “To claim copyright in a compilation, the author must produce the material with exercise of his skill and judgment which may not be creativity in the sense that it is novel or non- obvious, but at the same time it is not a product of merely labour and capital. The derivative work produced by the author must have some distinguishable features and flavour.”

There can be two major types of issues associated with products created primarily by artificial intelligence. These are the products produced without any human intervention and products created with a certain level of human interference. The issues of ownership and authorship are more or less similar in both the scenarios.

POSITION IN UNITED KINGDOM AND UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

In the United Kingdom, the law that governs patentability is the “Patent Law of 1977”. As per this law, the artificial intelligence models  and  computational  algorithms  are  excluded  from  patentability,  unless  they constitute  a  computer  program  that  has  an  “additional  technical  effect”  that  goes more than or  beyond “normal” physical interactions between the computer and the program[10].

Inventions  are  generally  patentable  in  the  United States,  however,  because  they  involve features related to computer and software, care should be taken regarding the US Supreme Court eligibility  test  as  provided  in  Alice  Corp. v. CLS Bank  International[11].

CONCLUSION

The issue of ownership and authorship of artificial intelligence products can be dealt effectively by making amendments in the Copyrights Act. There is even scope of a new legislation governing the protection of products created by artificial intelligence. Demarcation can be made in the products based on whether there was human interference in making that product or not. The more the human intervention, more will be the possibility of the human attaining ownership of that particular product.

Also, the products created by an AI may or may not be desired by the owner. With the developments in science, there can be situations where the AI can create certain products that are not preferred by its owner. But, since there is no specific law the liability will be on the human owner. This is also a case which mandates a new rule or legislation in this area.