N.Y.U. Proceedings

Exploring New Approaches to Unsettled Legal Questions

Tag: Intellectual Property and Information Law

Expansion of the Copyright Act: The Inclusion of Art Created In-Part by an Artificial Intelligence Program

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On May 5, 2021

In Contributions

by Nao­mi Per­la*

This Con­tri­bu­tion exam­ines whether an artist can claim copy­right pro­tec­tion over art they cre­at­ed with the assis­tance of an arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence pro­gram. Nao­mi Per­la (’21) argues that such works sat­is­fy the “orig­i­nal work of author­ship” require­ment pur­suant to 17 U.S.C. § 102(a), there­by grant­i­ng copy­right pro­tec­tion to the artist. The require­ments of both author­ship and orig­i­nal­i­ty are sat­is­fied due to the artist’s cre­ative choic­es that are large­ly reflect­ed in the fin­ished pieces. More­over, the Copy­right Act is meant to expand to include new works of art so that artists are con­sis­tent­ly incen­tivized to cre­ate for the ben­e­fit of the public.

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Nonce So Fast: Software “Structure” and Algorithmic Specificity in Computer-Implemented Means-plus-Function Patent Claims

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On April 13, 2021

In Contributions

by Zachary Hadd*

Despite decades of Fed­er­al Cir­cuit prece­dent, a clear def­i­nite­ness rubric for func­tion­al patent claims cov­er­ing soft­ware inven­tions remains eva­sive. Ques­tions per­sist on what con­sti­tutes suf­fi­cient struc­ture to absolve these claims of means-plus-func­tion treat­ment. The lev­el of algo­rith­mic speci­fici­ty required to ensure def­i­nite­ness for claims that are draft­ed in means-plus-func­tion form is sim­i­lar­ly abstruse. In this Con­tri­bu­tion, Zachary Hadd (’21) argues that even soft­ware-spe­cif­ic “struc­ture” is best inter­pret­ed under the means-plus-func­tion frame­work and that accord­ing def­i­nite­ness to any­thing less than step-by-step algo­rith­mic de-tail is not only unjus­ti­fied, but ulti­mate­ly incon­sis­tent with Fed­er­al Cir­cuit precedent.

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