The World Intellectual Property Organization this week issued a request for comments on whether copyright, patents or other intellectual property rights could or should be extended to works produced by artificial intelligence. The notice comes as part of a public consultation the United Nations agency launched back in September, and the comments will be used to refine its working draft (pdf) of the topics and questions to be addressed in the next, formal policy-development phase of the consultation beginning in May 2020.
The WIPO consultation parallels a similar process underway at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, which issued its own request for comments on the same topics in October. Other countries have also begun wrestling with questions of authorship and ownership in the emerging era of machine creativity.
The formal inquiries are at a very preliminary stage. Both WIPO and the USPTO acknowledge in their requests for comment that they are still trying to figure out what question they should even be asking and how they should be framed.