European Commission, Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (CNECT), 2024.

A study commissioned by the European Commission highlights the significant potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to improve public sector services across the EU. The report emphasizes that AI can enhance citizen-government interactions, boost analytical capabilities, and increase efficiency in key areas such as healthcare, mobility, e-Government, and education. These sectors are identified as among the most ready for large-scale AI deployment, with applications ranging from autonomous vehicles and smart traffic systems to AI-driven healthcare solutions and education technologies.

European Union Intellectual Property Office and Frontex, Apps & apps stores – Challenges and good practices to prevent the use of apps and app stores for IP infringement activities, European Union Intellectual Property Office, 2024.

The Expert Group on Cooperation with Intermediaries was set up to further the understanding of different intermediary services, how they can be misused for intellectual property-infringing activities, and how these misuses can be counteracted through good practices. Having looked at automated content recognition, domain names, social media, payments, transport and logistics and live event piracy, this seventh discussion paper examines apps and app stores. It aims to contribute to a better understanding of how apps and app stores are misused to infringe IP or support IP-infringing activities, the challenges raised by this misuse, and existing and developing good practices through which they can be addressed.

European Parliament, 2024.

European Union lawmakers signed the artificial intelligence (AI) act in June 2024. The AI act, the first binding worldwide horizontal regulation on AI, sets a common framework for the use and supply of AI systems in the EU. The new act offers a classification for AI systems with different requirements and obligations tailored to a 'risk-based approach'. Some AI systems presenting 'unacceptable' risks are prohibited. A wide range of 'high-risk' AI systems that can have a detrimental impact on people's health, safety or on their fundamental rights are authorised, but subject to a set of requirements and obligations to gain access to the EU market.

European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency, News blog, 16 July 2024.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a disruptive technology that has experienced a high level of development in the recent years. This explosive growth has enabled its introduction into the consumer market as commercial products by several software providers. Within this context, AI has become a complete game changer with a high level of sophistication that is expected to make an impact at all levels of people’s lives, particularly in the context of the creation of new original works, which will be our focus here.

European Commission: Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs, Simons, W., Turrini, A. and Vivian, L., Artificial intelligence – Economic impact, opportunities, challenges, implications for policy, Publications Office of the European Union, 2024.

This discussion paper presents the key features of Artificial Intelligence (AI), highlighting the main differences with respect to previous IT and digital technologies. It presents the most relevant facts about AI diffusion across EU countries, and discusses the main economic implications, focusing especially on its impact on productivity and labour markets. While AI presents a formidable opportunity, it also entails major challenges, with implications for policy. This paper focuses on policies to remove bottlenecks to AI development and adoption, regulatory policies, competition policy, policies to deal with labour market and distributive implications.

European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation, European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation, 2024.

Developed with intellectual property (IP) practitioners in national judicial authorities in mind, this report aims to provide a better understanding of how criminal infringements of copyrights are legislated and enforced across Member States of the European Union. Its focus are online criminal infringements of copyrights – specifically, infringements of the exclusive right of communication to the public and its making available prong.

European Commission: Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, Blind, K., Böhm, M., Martínez, C., Renda, A. et al., Publications Office of the European Union, 2024.

This policy brief explores how changes in several dimensions of innovation might influence IP regimes, and their impacts on society in the future. Since IP is a global phenomenon, we have no specific geographical focus, but look toward IP regimes in 2040. However, our policy implications are developed especially from the point of view of the European research and innovation policy. Across the scenarios, the coordination between national, particularly EU, and international IPR initiatives emerges as a relevant policy challenge.

European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency, News blog, 9 September 2024.

In the past two years, since OpenAI launched their GPT model to the users, Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) has experienced fast and exponential growth, especially in the field of Generative AI (GenAI). In this sense, on May 21, 2024, the Chilean government proposed an AI Regulation Bill, to regulate AI development. However, this legislation introduces changes to Copyright Law (N° 17.336), that could lead to potential conflicts between AI software developers, Intellectual Property right holders, and policymakers. This article explores the conflicts arising from this bill, specifically its implications for copyright law, and the difficult balance between innovation and the protection of the right holders.

European Parliament, 2023.

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to transform industries and society by boosting innovation, empowering individuals and increasing productivity. One of the drawbacks of the adoption of this technology, however, is that it is becoming increasingly difficult to differentiate human-generated content from synthetic content generated by AI, potentially enabling illegal and harmful conduct. Policymakers around the globe are therefore pondering how to design and implement watermarking techniques to ensure a trustworthy AI environment. China has already taken steps to ban AI-generated images without watermarks. The US administration has been tasked with developing effective labelling and content provenance mechanisms so that end users are able to determine when content is generated using AI and when it is not.

European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency, News blog, 6 September 2024.

Generative AI (genAI) technology has become increasingly vital in the present era due to its ability to enhance efficiency, innovation, and problem-solving. It can automate repetitive tasks, generate creative ideas, and analyse complex data, leading to significant advancements in various industries. From accelerating drug discovery to improving customer service, generative AI is reshaping the way we work and live, making it a crucial tool for addressing the challenges and opportunities of the modern world.

European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation (Eurojust), 2023.

Criminals swiftly adapt to new technology and incorporate them into their modus operandi, posing considerable obstacles for law enforcement agencies and the judiciary. Intellectual property (IP) crime is no exception. Generative AI can supply criminals with a wide range of tools to enhance their illicit business models. This study looks at how criminals utilise generative AI to violate various intellectual property rights. It examines ongoing cases and attempts to regulate the use of generative AI use in the field of intellectual property.

European Commission: Directorate-General for Research and Innovation and Kosova, H., Intellectual assets management – Mutual learning exercise on knowledge valorisation – Fifth thematic report, Kosova, H.(editor), Publications Office of the European Union, 2024.

The report explains the shift from the traditional approaches of intellectual property protection in research and innovation to the new broader concept of intellectual assets management. It tries to answer the question “What is changing?”and gives recommendations to policymakers. The report starts with the policy and legal background for navigating the intellectual assets management landscape within the framework of knowledge valorisation. It provides different perspectives from different stakeholders´ points of view on intellectual assets management while trying to abandon the strictly individual topic-related “silos” approach. Open approaches to intellectual assets management are discussed together with the challenges of the current geopolitical context.

European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency, News blog, 29 February 2024.

In a world rapidly moving towards digitalisation, digital art has emerged as a vibrant and captivating form of creative expression. In this article, we explore its relationship to intellectual property rights, a fertile ground for creativity and legal protection.

European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency, News blog, 10 November 2023.

Rapid digital transformation, as well as forthcoming innovation of the digital economy, has brought new challenges and opportunities for businesses, legislators, and consumers in the Intellectual Property (IP) sector. Intellectual property, broadly defined, refers to “products of original human thought.” The growing popularity of virtual assets, online marketplaces, general online platforms, and artificial intelligence has raised a number of salient considerations in the IP realm. This particular section will consider this broad issue from two perspectives. With the contribution of the SEA IP SME Helpdesk, the below section examines the top issues to do with IP and the digital economy in Singapore, as well as solutions from the Government to address IP-related challenges.

European Commission: European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency, Publications Office of the European Union, 2024.

Can AI works protected by copyright only be created by humans? What about the works that have been created by humans with Generative Artificial Intelligence? Differences between the works created by humans with GenAI, and those with no human intervention?

European Parliament: Directorate-General for Internal Policies of the Union and Maciejewski, M., Law and ICT, European Parliament, 2024.

Exponential progress in the area of ICT improves access to data and information, which in its turn can lead to greater accessibility, reduced complexity, efficiency and respect of fundamental rights in policy, law making and implementation of law. Drafting and publication of laws need to be reformed from paper based format to modern digital media. Expertise, evidence and data should constitute mandatory elements of policy and law making. Ex-post quantified evaluation of legislation needs to be applied consistently. This study was prepared by the European Parliament’s Policy Department for Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs at the request of the JURI Committee.

European Commission, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, 2024.

AI has great potential for accelerating scientific discovery and improving the effectiveness and pace of research and verification processes. Positive examples of the use of these tools by researchers include supporting non-native speakers in producing texts in multiple languages, producing text summaries from different sources across extremely large corpuses quickly, and automatically retrieving and contextualising a wide body of knowledge4. However, the technology also entails the risk of abuse. Some risks are due to the tool’s technical limitations, and others have to do with the (intentional or unintentional) use of the tool in ways that erode sound research practices. Other risks for research in Europe could stem from the proprietary nature of some of the tools (for example, lack of openness, fees to access the service, use of input data) or the concentration of ownership.

European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency, News blog, 13 June 2024.

On 9 June, new EU regulations mandating the availability of additional public datasets for reuse came into effect. These 'high-value datasets' cover six thematic areas specified in the Open Data Directive: geospatial, earth observation and environment, meteorological, statistics, companies, and mobility.

European Union Intellectual Property Office, 2024.

The research study series on business models infringing intellectual property (IP) has, since 2016, been one of the initiatives of the Observatory on Infringements of Intellectual Property Rights (‘the Observatory’) entrusted to the EUIPO. This 6th edition in the series focuses on the criminal threats to IP related to applications (‘apps’). The subject of apps has been selected for analysis because of their rapid expansion and wide acceptance by society, consumers, and internet users; technical developments; and the relevance of apps to the legal exploitation of IP, as well as overall app misuse by IP criminals.

Publications Office of the European Union, Graux, H., Gryffroy, P., Gad-Nowak, M. and Boghaert, L., Publications Office of the European Union, 2024.

The general impact of artificial intelligence (AI) systems on businesses, governments and the global economy is currently a hot topic. This isn’t surprising, considering that AI is believed to have the potential to bring about radical, unprecedented changes in the way people live and work. The transformative potential of AI originates to a large extent from its ability to analyse data at scale, and to notice and internalise patterns and correlations in that data that humans (or fully deterministic algorithms) would struggle to identify. In simpler terms: modern AIs flourish especially if they can be trained on large volumes of data, and when they are used in relation to large volumes of data.

European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency, News blog, 8 July 2024.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has gained widespread recognition in recent years, becoming a household name. Its broad influence has reached across industries worldwide, extending to various legal fields including trade mark law.

European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency, News blog, 20 December 2024.

Some design agencies and freelancers can at times deliver works generated by AI tools or copied from standard samples. Regardless of the ethical aspect of such practices, the use of generative AI tools by designers and content creators can give rise to intellectual property related issues linked to originality, licensing, and ownership.