Intellectual Property Office New Information Asset Committee

The Intellectual Property Office launched a New Information Asset Investigation Committee. It is a new assembly that was formed from the current round. I am serving as the committee chairman.

Last year's next generation committee discussed leading the world in AI creation, but this time we will expand the discussion to include big data, IoT etc., as well as industrial property rights other than copyright.

There are 3 points under consideration.

1. Strengthening of industrial competitiveness

2. The balance between protectiveness and usefulness

3. International coordination and harmony

Among these, number 1 was confirmed in a meeting as a very important point to be advanced.

There are 2 challenges.

1. Protection and use of data, and 2. Creation, protection, and use of AI.

For 1, discussion will be held regarding the right to accumulate large amounts of data through the IoT, and the predominance of platformers, and plans will be made to strengthen industrial competitiveness.

For 2, we will go over intellectual property issues in addition to AI creation, learning data sets, learned models, etc.

About the 1st challenge. How do you guarantee intellectual property rights to raw data and accumulated big data? Does data require an open or closed strategy?

About the 2nd challenge. How should AI learning data sets and learned models be positioned in the intellectual property system? In what situations do AI creations need to be protected?

Right away at the meeting, there was some discussion about how the definitions of raw data and big data are unclear, and the point was made that if the progress of AI was debated too early, the situation would change while the discussion was still going on.

Furthermore, it was pointed out that international harmonization and inter-agency collaboration should be attempted. Regarding the latter in particular, there has been a flood of around 10 conferences within the government for AI and IoT, and cooperation and coordination is an important mission for the Intellectual Property Office.

In addition to methods of protection such as legal systems and contracts, it has been pointed out that we should issue not only system theory, but also a wide range of messages such as utilization promotion measures and stimulation measures. So with all that going on, the discussion is starting to heat up.