Jyh-An Lee

Jingwen Liu, Jyh-An Lee

Export control is a policy and legal tool to protect national interests by regulating exports of sensitive goods and technology to foreign nations. It has become central to U.S.-China tech rivalry, especially in AI. Controls cover advanced chips, capital, personnel, and critical minerals for semiconductors. Since October 2022, the U.S. BIS has progressively tightened restrictions on advanced computing components to China. China responded with export curbs on critical minerals and filed a WTO complaint against the U.S. under GATT. This article argues that while export controls are strategic in U.S.-China AI competition, their long-term effectiveness is questionable. They often unintentionally boost China's self-reliance and R&D. Moreover, overly strict or arbitrary controls may violate WTO obligations, complicating dispute resolution and hindering AI progress. The study further examines legal implications of overusing export controls. It advocate for a restrained interpretation of security interests, arguing that commercial or dual-use AI models and semiconductors do not meet the security exception criteria under GATT Article XXI(b).

Yangzi Li, Jyh-An Lee

The unauthorised use of data in the training of generative AI models presents significant legal challenges, particularly under intellectual property (IP) and privacy laws. These frameworks frequently grapple with the intricate relationship between data ownership and AI innovation, resulting in ongoing debates regarding optimal protection and enforceability. This article delves into considerable potential of unjust enrichment as an alternative legal doctrine for resolving disputes arising from such unauthorised data use. We explore how the concept of unjust enrichment captures the wrongfulness of unauthorised data use in a manner distinct from IP infringement and privacy violations. Furthermore, we analyse the extent to which gain-based restitution for unjust enrichment may prove more advantageous than existing remedies, including legal, equitable, and statutory options. We content that by shifting the emphasis from establishing wrongful conduct to recovering benefits obtained unjustly, unjust enrichment offers a pragmatic and equitable framework that reconciles the rights of data owners with the interests of AI developers.

Rita Matulionyte, Jyh-An Lee

In Thaler v The Comptroller-General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks (DABUS), Smith J. held that an AI owner can possibly claim patent ownership over an AI-generated invention based on their ownership and control of the AI system. This AI-owner approach reveals a new option to allocate property rights over AI-generated output. While this judgment was primarily about inventorship and ownership of AI-generated invention in patent law, it has important implications for copyright law. After analysing the weaknesses of applying existing judicial approaches to copyright ownership of AI-generated works, this paper examines whether the AI-owner approach is a better option for determining copyright ownership of AI-generated works. The paper argues that while contracts can be used to work around the AI-owner approach in scenarios where users want to commercially exploit the outputs, this approach still provides more certainty and less transaction costs for relevant parties than other approaches proposed so far.

Jyh-An Lee, Jingwen Liu

This chapter examines the impact of the geopolitical rivalry between the United States and China on the prospects for inclusive innovation in artificial intelligence (AI) development. We explore three critical aspects of the American and Chinese legal infrastructure that significantly impact AI innovation: data privacy, intellectual property (IP rights), and export restrictions. Through this comparative analysis, we argue that, while China's legal environment may offer certain advantage in terms of access to training data and IP protection, the United States maintains superior resources by enforcing strict export controls on semiconductor chips, AI models, as well as outbound investments in these areas. This nuanced examination helps illuminate how each country's legal framework could influence the ultimate trajectory of AI race and how the technological rivalry has led to exclusionary rulemaking on a global scale.