Tag: Spoor and Fisher

The New York Times (NYT) is taking on tech giant Microsoft (MS) and The Disrupters - the OpenAI group of companies (OAI) - in the New York District Court, alleging that MS and OAI are copying and using NYT's work and "massive investment in journalism" without permission or payment to create generative AI (GenAI) tools and products, like Microsoft's Co-Pilot (formerly Bing Chat) and OpenAI's ChatGPT, that compete with it. This, according to NYT, translates into vast savings and profits for MS and OAI.

The South African Patent Office issued Practice Note 21 of 2023 on 7 April 20213 setting out the requirements for expedited acceptance of patent applications. The Practice Note will go some way to curbing the abuse of the non-examination system by applicants who request expedited acceptance and grant of South African patents, for example, in order to leverage governmental rebates and incentives awarded on grant of foreign patents.

Read our exclusive cover story titled ChatGPT - who owns the IP? by Lodewyk Cilliers and Dina Biagio, Partners at Spoor & Fisher, and ChatGPT, Language Model Computer Program, OpenAI, plus a host of other topical management articles written by professionals, consultants and academics in the February/March 2023 edition.

It was the Roman Statesman, Marcus Tullius Cicero who first used the phrase: Silent enim lēgēs inter arma – In times of war, the law falls silent. These words may still ring true today as the world witnesses the horrifying effects of wars in our time, and the appropriation of property that accompanies them.

A case in point is the UK Intellectual Property Office’s (UKIPO) recent decision to refuse French company Les Grands Chais de France’s (LGCF) application for registration for the trade mark 'Nosecco' for non-alcoholic wines. The UKIPO held that the name Nosecco would evoke the image of the increasingly popular geographical indication (GI) Prosecco in consumers’ minds.

Read our exclusive cover story entitled WHO TO SUE? | YOUR CHALLENGES IN TAKING AN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TO COURT! by Brendon Ambrose, Associate Attorney, Spoor and Fisher, as well a host of other topical management articles written by professionals, consultants and academics in the April/May 2018 edition of BusinessBrief.

No longer the stuff of science fiction - Artificial Intelligence (AI) is (almost) here and is here to stay. So, have you ever wondered what you would do if an AI had to injure, defame, infringe or steal from you?

When it comes to Artificial Intelligence (AI), the law of copyright may be one step behind. Copyright is governed in terms of the Copyright Act which protects certain defined “works” including computer programmes, films, and literary, musical and artistic works. Up and until recently, these works have been created exclusively by humans. The advances in AI, however, have resulted in the possibility of an AI creating its own works with little, or even no, human input.