Businesses across multiple sectors are increasingly integrating generative artificial intelligence (AI) systems, particularly large language models (LLMs), into their strategic planning. Fully editable and incorporating both open source and proprietary features, LLMs provide organisations with the ability to customise their own specific AI system. This customisation can potentially result in creations, or ‘outputs’, that are in and of themselves classifiable as inventions. With the ever-growing capabilities of LLMs, such inventions may well be on par with those that have previously been awarded U.S. patents.
Those organisations that use and customise these LLMs usually retain ownership of the intellectual property rights of any outputs created. A key statutory prerequisite for this outcome—specifically concerning patent rights—is the requirement for a demonstrable contribution of a natural person to the creative process. This stipulation, among others, is raising important legal and policy discussions as law-makers strive to keep pace with the rapid adoption and evolution of AI technologies.
The full exploration of LLM customization leading to potential human inventorship and patent rights, provides a deeper insight into these emerging legal considerations of AI technology utilisation in business.