Intellectual property in the era of IT development: IP Club discussion

On April 20, as part of the opening of the Intellectual Property Week, a discussion "Intellectual property in the era of IT development" and an award ceremony for the winners of the All–Russian IP&IT LAW - 2023 competition took place. The event is organized by IP CLUB together with the Coordination Center of domains .RU/.RF and the Center for International and Comparative Legal Studies.

The speakers of the event:

• Vorobyev Andrey (Director of the Coordination Center of domains .RU/.RF)
• Zuykov Sergey (Managing Partner of Zuykov and Partners)
• Ersh Alexandra (Vice President of IP CLUB, PhD)
• Khodakov Ilya (Senior Associate of ALRUD)
• Gushchina Irina (Senior Associate of Semenov & Pevzner)

The discussion was moderated by Marina A. Rozhkova, President of the IP CLUB, Professor of the Russian State Academy of IP, Doctor of Law.

The participants of the meeting discussed problems related to the content generated by the neural network, including the creation of logos, the creation of objects in video games, etc. The subjectivity of artificial intelligence remains a debatable issue. Various approaches have been proposed to the question of the copyright holder of works created by AI, namely, the distinction between the creator of AI and the operator who trained AI.

In continuation of the discussion about the objects created by AI, Sergey Zuykov spoke on the topic "IP protection in cyberspace. The connection of the real and digital world".

Sergey Zuykov summed up the discussion and at the same time outlined the issues and problems that still remain without a legal solution, in particular, about the problem of digital copies on the Internet, as well as how the violation of rights in video games occurs. In addition, the expert raised the question of the uniqueness of digital copies certified with various tokens.

There are still a lot of questions about trademarks in cyberspace. Sergey Zuykov believes that real judicial practice in this area will not be accumulated in the next 5-10 years.

As an example, Sergey Zuykov cited the recent case of artist Mason Rothschild, who lost in a New York court in the case of the creation and sale of 100 MetaBirkins fur NFT bags - digital copies resembling Hermès Birkin branded bags.

Another well–known example is a collection of digital copies of Nike sneakers created by the seller, also certified with tokens. Nike has claimed trademark infringement in cyberspace.

According to Sergey Zuykov, the main problem remains the lack of clarity of the responsible authority in such cases.

Speech by Sergey Zuykov 2:02:15 – 2:18:00: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_lyG5p7qFY

The panel discussion continued with the awarding ceremony of the winners of the 8 All-Russian Youth Competition of works on the law of information technology and intellectual Property IP&IT LAW 2023.

Zhanna Sugirbekova, a master's student at St. Petersburg State University, became the winner in the nomination established by Zuykov and Partners. In her work "Responsibility of Marketplaces for Trademark Infringement", Zhanna examined the responsibility of marketplaces in both Russian and foreign practice. Our congratulations on a worthy victory!