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| Leeds Light Festival Author Donald Judge Lince CC BY-SA 2.0 Deed Source Wikimedia Commons |
TIPSY is an abbreviation, not an adjective. It stands for The Intellectual Property Society of Yorkshire and it was started by my fellow St Andrean, Andrew Clay of Sonder & Clay, I have mentioned TIPSY twice before in this publication. The first time was when we entertained His Honour Judge Hacon to dinner (see TIPSY 10 Dec 2018). The second was when we welcomed Mr Justice Birss as he then was just before lockdown (see TIPSY Dinner for Mr Justice Birss 28 Feb 2020). I have attended a few more of these dinners but I have not always been inspired to write about them.
Yesterday's is worth writing about because the guest of honour was Justin Turner KC. He spoke to us about Mrs Justice Joanna Smith's decision in Getty Images (US) Inc and others v Stability AI Ltd [2023] EWHC 3090 (Ch) (1 Dec 2023) and the Supreme Court's judgment in Thaler v Comptroller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks [2023] UKSC 49 (20 Dec 2023). I have a particular interest in those cases having mentioned both of them in my first newsletter. I wrote about Mrs Justice Joanna Smith's decision in Copyright and Artificial Intelligence - Getty Images (US) Inc and others v Stability AI Ltd in NIPC Law on 12 Dec 2023 and the Supreme Court's in The Supreme Court's Judgment in DABUS on 26 Dec 2023 in NIPC Law.
Justin focused on Getty and he produced a number of slides and handouts for the audience, He began his talk by introducing us to Duncker's problem which Wikipedia describes as "a cognitive performance test, measuring the influence of functional fixedness on a participant's problem-solving capabilities." The objective is to fix and light a candle on a corkboard in a way that the candle wax won't drip onto the table below. Each person who takes part is issued with a board, a candle, a box of drawing pins and some matches.
He also screened an extract from a scientific paper but left it to us to guess its connection with Dubcker's problem, the concept of artificial intelligence and Mrs Justice Joanna Smith's decision not to strike out Getty's case against Stability AI.
In his discussion on DABUS Justin referred to para [52] of Lord Kitchin's judgment where he said:
"in this jurisdiction, it is not and has never been Dr Thaler's case that he was the inventor and used DABUS as a highly sophisticated tool. Had he done so, the outcome of these proceedings might well have been different."
That prompted me to ask the question: "Who is funding this and similar litigation around the world and why?" Neither Justin nor anyone else around the room knew the answer to that conundrum.
On 31 Jan 2024, I attended an excellent introduction by Klaire Tanner to various artificial intelligence software that is available to the public and was shown what they can do. I used one of those application to make the masthead for the second issue of my newsletter
Earlier today I was delighted to learn that Parminder Lally and one of her colleagues have accepted an invitation to speak at the Cambridge IP Law Summer School She has drafted a lot of specifications for computer-implemented inventions and she knows a great deal about the legal issues relating to AI. She is the author of the brAIn blog newsletter. Her presentation last year was excellent. I look forward to hearing again this August,
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