Weekly IP Buzz for the Week Ending January 7, 2022
In this week's post, we see that popular advertising company, OpenX Technologies, Inc., was found guilty of violating federal privacy laws including COPPA, which resulted in being fined $2 million.
Plus, the listing of AI as inventor for patents is forcing different countries to review and decide whether AI can indeed be considered an inventor.
FTC Fines OpenX Technologies $2 Million for Violation of Privacy Laws
After a lengthy investigation, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) found OpenX Technologies, Inc. (“OpenX”) to be guilty of multiple violations of federal privacy laws, most notably the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which resulted in fines of approximately $2 million dollars.
Read the full article here.
Can AI Invent? Patent Applications List Artificial Intelligence as an Inventor
As artificial intelligence continues to grow and develop, one question to ask is how long before an artificial intelligence is an inventor on a patent? Currently, it appears the answer depends on where you live.
Dr. Stephen Thaler has filed two different patent applications, “Food Container” and “Devices and Methods for Attracting Enhanced Attention”, a light emitting device, naming and Artificial Intelligence known as DABUS (Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience) as the inventor. Dr. Thaler filed these two applications in the U.S., the UK, South Africa, the EU, and Australia.
Currently, South Africa is the only country that has granted DABUS, and Dr. Thaler, a patent on the applications. The United States, United Kingdom, European Union, and Germany have all rejected the two applications. In the various countries, the term “inventor” is defined in relevant statutes as a human, therefore excluding applications attributed to an artificial intelligence.
Find the full article here.
Click to read the previous Weekly IP Buzz on Thriving Attorney.
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In addition to publishing Thriving Attorney, Darin M. Klemchuk is founder of Klemchuk LLP, a litigation, intellectual property, and transactional law firm located in Dallas, Texas. Click to read more about Darin Klemchuk's practice as an intellectual property lawyer. For more on the latest developments in IP law, see the blogs Ideate and IP Questions Answered.