Public Symposium on AI and IP; United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), Wednesday, March 27, 2024 10 AM - 3 PM PT/1 PM - 6 PM ET

 United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO); Public Symposium on AI and IP

"The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Emerging Technologies (ET) Partnership will hold a public symposium on intellectual property (IP) and AI. The event will take place virtually and in-person at Loyola Law School, Loyola Marymount University, in Los Angeles, California, on March 27, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. PT. 

The symposium will facilitate the USPTO’s efforts to implement its obligations under the President’s Executive Order (E.O.) 14110 “Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence.” The event will include representation from the Copyright Office, build on previous AI/Emerging Technologies (ET) partnership events, and feature panel discussions by experts in the field of patent, trademark, and copyright law that focus on:

1. A comparison of copyright and patent law approaches to the type and level of human contribution needed to satisfy authorship and inventorship requirements;
2. Ongoing copyright litigation involving generative AI; and 
3. A discussion of laws and policy considerations surrounding name, image, and likeness (NIL) issues, including the intersection of NIL and generative AI.

This event is free and open to the public, but in-person attendance is limited, so register early"

21st-century editors should keep their hands off of 20th-century books; The Washington Post, June 12, 2023

 Editorial Board, The Washington Post; 21st-century editors should keep their hands off of 20th-century books

"A number of beloved novels, for both children and adults, are being “retouched” — updated to remove overtly racist, sexist or otherwise offensive language. Publishers and literary estates — including those of best-selling mystery writer Agatha Christie, children’s author Roald Dahl and James Bond creator Ian Fleming — argue these changes will ensure, in the words of the Dahl estate, that “wonderful stories and characters continue to be enjoyed by all children today.”

But it’s a threat to free expression, to historical honesty and, indeed, to readers themselves for contemporary editors to comb through works of fiction written at different moments and rewrite them for today’s mind-set, particularly with little explanation of process or limiting principles. The trend raises uncomfortable questions about authorship and authenticity, and it ignores the reality that texts are more than consumer goods or sources of entertainment in the present. They are also cultural artifacts that attest to the moment in which they were written — the good and the bad...

Literature is often meant to be provocative. Stripping it of any potential to offend dilutes its strength, especially in a moment when there is a concerted effort in this country to limit what can be read and taught. Publishers need not reprint books with no acknowledgment of potentially offensive contents. They can treat the publication of such texts as opportunities to explain why they read the way they do, in introductions and in footnotes. And, if publishers see little option but to change wording, they should at least explain to readers what they are changing and why."