Japan to Accelerate AI Development by Utilizing Intellectual Property Rights

　 The Japanese government held a conference last month for the Intellectual Property Strategy Headquarters which is a subcommittee of the Cabinet of Japan and is headed by the Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe. As part of the conference the committee finalized their intellectual property promotion plan for 2017. The focus for 2017 is on building systems geared toward accelerating further AI development.

　　Under the current plan, AI components have been divided into four groups, namely, “ AI Related Input Data”, “AI”, “Trained AI Models” and “AI Made Products”.

　　As part of the plan, the government intends to develop the distribution infrastructure for “AI Related Input Data” in order to expand AI utilization. To achieve this goal, Japan will ease copyright restrictions related to the data that is input into AI systems.

　　The policies with respect to the intellectual property systems for the categories of “AI” and “Trained AI Models” will remain the same.

　　Also, “AI Made Products” will be protected under copyright laws, but under this policy the AI that created the product (such as a database) will still be considered a tool for making the product, and thus the creator of the product will be deemed to be a human being.

　　In the future, the committee will consider the requirements and scope of protection related to intellectual property rights for Trained AI Models, as well as proceeding with strengthening the intellectual property systems in order to enhance Japan’s industrial competitiveness with respect to AI.