SEARCH

After many years of doubts and uncertainty, the Unified Patent Court (UPC) has now entered the Provisional Application Period (PAP) and is expected to be operational from April 2023.

All European patents with unitary effect (that is, Unitary Patents) must use the UPC for infringement or invalidity proceedings. This is not the case for European patents that are validated in a participating Member State, whether granted before or after the UPC comes into force.

The European Patent with unitary effect, or Unitary Patent (UP), is a single right that covers all of the participating Member States of the European Union. The new Unified Patent Court (UPC) will handle enforcement of a Unitary Patent throughout the participating Member States.

Artificial intelligence (AI) relies on large amounts of data. Machine learning algorithms learn to find inter-dependencies and patterns amongst data sets and apply its learnings to any new data it is presented with.

This article explores the rights available specifically for AI algorithms, in particular comparing the protection conferred by patents and trade secrets.