A Sui Generis System would benefit AI

Due to the obstacles to protecting AI outputs by copyright, patent, or related rights, some scholars have proposed creating a special sui generis regime for the protection of AI-generated works. De Cock Buning writes that introduction of a sui generis right for the protection of AI outputs is a very likely option, as it would leave room for the attribution of rights that is most suitable: whether the beneficiary is the legal entity that made the investment into the AI system or the legal entity to be established in order to represent the AI system’s acts in law.65 Lorenzoni proposes a sui generis system for AI outputs that would protect works of art and inventions under the same regime. Per Lorenzoni, works of art, autonomously created by an AI system, for which investments have been made, and that are original, meaning they are not copies of existing works, would be protected by the sui generis system and, similar to copyright, not require registration. AI-generated inventions would be protected if they satisfy the requirements of novelty, industrial application, and “innovative step” (instead of an inventive step for patents), meaning the invention should be different from the prior art and such difference should make a substantial contribution to the working of the invention. For both works of art and inventions, Lorenzoni proposes a term of protection in between that offered to software and databases, e.g., 10 years. Similar to the sui generis database right, the sui generis right in AI outputs would be allocated to the person taking the initiative and the risk of investing into the AI system.66 Despite the detailed description of the proposed sui generis system, it is not clear how the two regimes, which are essentially a copyright-like protection and a regime similar to utility patents, are to be combined into a single sui generis regime.