Originality

The threshold of originality is a concept in copyright law that is used to assess whether a particular work can be protected by copyright. It is used to distinguish works that are sufficiently original to warrant copyright protection from those that are not.

Artificial Intelligence (AI), Authorship, European Union, Fair Use, Originality, Text and Data Mining (TDM), United Kingdom, USA

(Potter Clarkson LLP and King's College London)/ /Leave a comment

Copyright protection in machine-generated works is not a new issue for law makers. The traditional concept of human authorship was first challenged with the emergence of photography and this has continued every time a new technology comes about. In the U.S., the case of Burrow-Giles Lithographic Co. v. Sarony, 111 U.S. 53 (1884) extended copyright…

Artificial Intelligence (AI), Authorship, CJEU, European Union, Originality, United Kingdom

(Georgetown University Law Center)/ /2 Comments

Recently, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, in line with several decisions of the U.S. Copyright Office’s Review Board, found that human creativity is the sine qua non of copyrightability, refusing to register a work lacking human creative involvement or control. In this way, the U.S. jurisprudence embraces the distinction between…

Case Law, Copyright, Originality, Subject matter (copyrightable), United Kingdom

, (Bristows LLP)/ /Leave a comment

The UK High Court has held that Lidl’s rights in the Lidl logo were infringed by Tesco’s Clubcard Price(s) signs ([2023] EWHC 873 (Ch)). Specifically, the court made the following findings. Trade mark infringement – Lidl’s trade mark for the Lidl logo was infringed by Tesco’s Clubcard Price(s) signs, which took unfair advantage of Lidl’s…

AG Opinion, Authorship, Case Law, CDSM Directive, CJEU, Communication (right of), Digital Single Market, European Union, Legislative process, Liability, Originality, Private copying, Round-up, Text and Data Mining (TDM)

(University College London) and (Institute for Information Law (IViR))/ /Leave a comment

Welcome to the third trimester of the 2023 round up of EU copyright law! In this edition, we update you on what has happened between July and September 2023 in EU copyright law. The autumn has started with full speed – the courts and the policy makes have been very active. This round up series…

Artificial Intelligence (AI), Authorship, Originality

(Vanderbilt University Law School)/ /1 Comment

The intersection of Artificial intelligence and Intellectual Property is complex. It involves several IP rights, some of which overlap in some cases: copyright, trademarks, patents, trade secrets/confidential information, and the right of publicity (and similar rights with different names). The situation has increased in complexity now that not only the input but also the output…

Artificial Intelligence (AI), Originality, Subject matter (copyrightable), USA

(University of Milan)/ /Leave a comment

Introduction Part 1 analysed an Italian case related to the copyright protection of a “floral fractal” generated via machine-learning (see RAI vs Biancheri). Even more recently, another case dedicated to protection of AI generated visual art has been decided by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (Thaler vs Perlmutter, Civil Action…

Artificial Intelligence (AI), Italy, Originality

(University of Milan)/ /1 Comment

Introduction One of the main contentious points when artificial intelligence, deep learning or machine learning (for the distinction between these functionalities, see here) are used for generating creative works is the question of attribution of works to an author, usually a human who has used the tech tool with some level of involvement in the…

Case Law, Infringement, Originality, United Kingdom

, (Bristows LLP)/ /1 Comment

Perhaps it comes as no surprise that a copyright dispute regarding a fire-breathing–sneezing dragon would get so heated. The case of Evans v John Lewis Plc & Anor [2023] EWHC 766 (IPEC) is a copyright infringement claim in which the IPEC (a specialist IP court in the UK) was asked to decide whether John Lewis’s…

Case Law, France, Infringement, Originality

(REALEX)/ /Leave a comment

In a case between Google and the creator of the font used by the French newspaper Le Monde, the Paris Court of First Instance (‘Tribunal Judiciaire’) has handed down a judgment in which it ruled that the font created for the newspaper is original and thus protected by copyright, even though it found that Google’s…

Authorship, Database right, Originality, Ownership, United Kingdom

, (Bristows LLP)/ /1 Comment

Summary In the case of Wright & Ors v BTC Core & Ors [2023] EWHC 222 the High Court was faced with a technical copyright question about whether literary copyright can subsist in the file format used for the Bitcoin System (the “Bitcoin File Format”).  Justice Mellor concluded that copyright could not subsist in the…