Creativity Revisited

Abstract

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, I wrote two articles on the consequences of using computer-based creativity to create works later claimed for copyright or patent protection: Intellectual Property in the Era of the Creative Computer Program: Will the True Creator Please Stand Up?, 71 Tul. L. Rev. 1675 (1997), and Random Numbers, Chaos Theory, and Cogitation: a Search for the Minimal Creativity Standard in Copyright Law, 82 Denver U. L. Rev. 259 (2004). The basic conclusion of these articles was that substituting artificial intelligence technology [“A.I.”] for human creativity results in works that are in the public domain. This essay, based on a presentation made at the University of New Hampshire’s Scholarship Redux Conference, reexamines the area after a gap of almost fifteen years. It asserts that the basic conclusion of non-protectability made in the two articles was correct, but acknowledges that the focus predominantly on copyright rather than patent law was restricting. Further, when A.I. is examined under patent law concepts, it is likely to cause difficulties beyond those of determining if anyone invented the claimed work. In particular, the expansion of A.I. into a universal tool within research laboratories will require a re-examination of the obviousness of all inventions.

Keywords: Intellectual Property, Patent, Copyright, Creativity, Artificial Intellegence

JEL Classification: K11, O31, O34