Intellectual Property

Recent Articles

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  10/10/2024

  Belgium

  Artificial intelligence and copyright: what are AI companies allowed to do?

  Having addressed the issue of copyright protection of the output of generative AI tools (such as whether AI-generated content can be protected by copyright), this article explores the issue of the use of copyright protected material as input data for training these tools.Generative AI is a type of artificial intelligence that can create new content, such as text, images, videos, audio or software code, in response to user prompts. Generative AI models (like those used by OpenAI’s ChatGPT) are trained with a large amount of publicly available data. A common method of collecting this data is...

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  10/10/2024

  China

  China Releases Practical Guide for Identifying Sensitive Personal Information

  On 14 September 2024, the National Technical Committee 260 on Cybersecurity of Standardization Administration of China (“TC260”) released TC260-PG-20244A Practical Guide to Cybersecurity Standard - Guide for Identifying Sensitive Personal Information (v1.0-202409) (“Guide”). The Guide aims to facilitate companies to identify sensitive personal information by providing relevant identification rules alongside specific examples. Please see our newsletter here with a brief introduction. 

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  02/10/2024

  Belgium

  Could AI-generated designs find protection under EU design law?

  As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to revolutionize the creative industry, it brings with it a host of legal questions, particularly in the realm of intellectual property. One of those questions is how to protect AI-generated designs.AI and Copyright: A Human-Centric LawUnder current copyright laws, courts in the EU and the US seem to take the position that protection is granted only to works created by human authors. This means that AI-generated works, no matter how creative AI has been, would not be eligible for copyright protection. This gap in the law leaves AI-generated works vulnerable...

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  30/09/2024

  United Kingdom

  ASA upholds complaint against Nike in relation to misleading price claims

  On 25th September 2024, the Advertising Standards Authority (“ASA”) upheld a ruling against Nike and its authorised seller, The Sole Supplier, concluding that a paid-for advert promoting a deal available on a pair of Nike trainers was misleading and should not be shown again. This ruling forms part of the ASA’s wider piece of work on ‘online choice architecture’ (OCA), and so-called ‘dark patterns’.OCA is the designs, systems, and procedures that a website or software developer/operator implements to facilitate the decision-making of its end users. While...

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  25/09/2024

  Europe

  Priority entitlement: the EPO implements the new “rebuttable presumption” criteria of G 1/22 and G 2/22 (T 2360/19)

  In recent Technical Board of Appeal decision T 2360/19, the Board considered the validity of priority claims following the Enlarged Board of Appeal consolidated decision G 1/22 and G 2/22.The opposed patent EP2784162 in the name of The Broad Institute, Inc. relates to CRISPR gene editing technology and is a divisional of EP2771468. The parent patent EP2771468 was previously revoked as confirmed by the Board of Appeal decision in T 844/18 (discussed in our article here) following case law known as the “same applicant” or “all applicants approach”, which preceded G 1/22 and...

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  24/09/2024

  Belgium

  Trademark rights in the digital age: AI and NFTs

  Imagine a world where machines can write books, design virtual fashion, and create entire marketing campaigns. This is not science fiction – it is our current reality. As new technologies emerge, companies are pushing the boundaries of digital content creation. However, these technological advancements come with a new set of legal challenges, and trademark law is no exception.Trademark holders now face the daunting task of safeguarding their intellectual property in an era where generative artificial intelligence (“AI”) is able to easily replicate or mimic existing trademarks...

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