News 2024

Legal Update: Patents - Artificial Intelligence (AI) Inventions reporting by Dr Rosanna Cooper and Daniella Corbin, July 2024

The UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) has recently re-released its guidance on examining patent applications concerning Artificial Intelligence (AI) inventions. The guidance followed the ruling of the High Court trademark case of Emotional Perception AI Ltd v Comptroller-General of Patents, Designs, November 2023. In the Emotional Perception AI case, a UKIPO hearing officer refused a patent application for an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) invention. The hearing officer argued that the ANN invention was a “program for a computer” and therefore excluded under the Patents Act. The High Court disagreed with this decision, confirming that an ANN is patentable and falls outside of that exclusion.

Daniella Corbin

Emotional Perception Case

Emotional Perception AI invented a system that claimed tomake music and media recommendations to its users in anew and improved way. This was said to be possible basedon how the users were categorised by ANNs that weretrained. The claim itself considered two aspects of ANNusage: (i) the process by which ANN is trained, and (ii) theprocess of using the trained ANN.The patent application for this invention was rejected by ahearing officer of the UKIPO, who concluded that EmotionalPerception’s claimed invention was not patentable. Theofficer determined that the system created by EmotionalPerception, as a whole, was a computer program, andadditionally, its ability to provide similar filerecommendations was not “technical in nature” andbelieved it to be excluded from patentability under thePatents Act.

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Legal Update: Software Licensing : IBM vs LZLABS case reporting by Daniella Corbin, May 2024

IBM vs LZLABS

In recent news, Zurich-based startup company, LZLabs is being sued for the second time by IBM, not for patent infringement like the previous 2022 Texas case between the two, but rather, for “unlawful” use of IBM's “proprietary technology.” In a statement, IBM stated that “ the case has nothing to do with restricting competition but protecting itself against the unlawful exploitation of technology that required billions of dollars of investment.” For that reason IBM wants the court to order LZLabs to stop selling its tech and forbid them and any subsidiaries from making further use of the IBM mainframe software.

Daniella Corbin

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Case Study - March 2024

Final year Biomedical

Science Student -

Academic Misconduct

Appeal Upheld

Case Study : Final year Biomedical Science student (‘our client’) excluded after three offences of Academic Misconduct. RT Coopers drafted Appeal which was Upheld by the Appeal Committee.

In year 2, our client was found guilty of academic misconduct (first offence). In the final year, our client was accused of plagiarism and collusion (second offences) and denied any wrongdoing during the investigation meeting. Our client admitted to the second offences during the hearing of the Examinations Misconduct Committee. The Committee recommended exclusion for academic misconduct treating plagiarism and collusion as two separate offences. Therefore, our client was on record as committing three offences of academic misconduct by the time RT Coopers were instructed to draft the Appeal against the exclusion. The Appeal was upheld by the Appeal Committee.

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Case Study : MSc in Mental Health Nursing – Withdrawn from programme having failed placement - Academic Appeal Partially upheld - February 2024.

MSc student studying Mental Health Nursing (‘our client’) failed the Retrieval Management Placement and was withdrawn from the nursing programme. Our client lodged a preliminary stage appeal with the university which was rejected. RT Coopers were instructed to advise on the second stage appeal. In this regard, an initial consultation was held, and our client was advised on how to particularise the grounds of appeal in order to have a chance of winning the case and worked on the draft appeal with our client.

Background

Our Client started a repeat placement during COVID having failed the previous placement as the placement providers claimed that our client had not met the professional values regarding the leadership and self-reflection domains. Our client was unable to take on the role of nurse in charge having missed the handover in the previous placement and this occurred in the Retrieval Management Placement during COVID. Following the initial interview in the Retrieval Management Placement, a detailed plan of what had to be achieved was placed on the Practice Assessment Document (‘PAD’) by the Practice Education Facilitator to ensure our client got the correct support...

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