Apart from their assigned mod courses, 1L students may only enroll in courses offered as 1L electives. A complete list of these courses can be found on the 1L Elective Listings page. 1L students must use the 1L class number listed on the course description when enrolling.
276.46 sec. 001 - IP and Human Creativity in the AI Age (Spring 2026)
Instructor: Yuan Hao
Instructor: Robert P Merges (view instructor's teaching evaluations - degree students only | profile)
View all teaching evaluations for this course - degree students only
Units: 2
Grading Designation: Graded
Mode of Instruction: In-Person
Meeting:
Th 3:35 PM - 5:25 PM
Location: Law 240
From January 15, 2026
To April 23, 2026
Course End: April 23, 2026
Class Number: 33571
Enrollment info:
Enrolled: 0
Waitlisted: 0
Enroll Limit: 24
As of: 11/05 06:49 PM
While the concept of artificial intelligence (“AI”) goes back to the 1940s, its current widespread implementation is largely due to the recent exponential increase in training data and computing power that undergirded one specific school of AI – machine learning. Remarkably, during the past few years, AI has started to permeate creative activities, which were always perceived to be human beings’ sole remit. For the very first time in history, a “tool” appears to be capable of generating its own ideas and expressions. Consequently, we may be witnessing a paradigm shift in the creative process, as the shockwaves of Generative AI and AlphaFold inspire us. Ideally, in this new creative paradigm, human beings and AI each utilize their own comparative advantages, constituting a “1+1 =2” effect. In the longer term, it may have profound impacts on the knowledge economy, entailing both unprecedented opportunities and risks to human creativity.
Over the past centuries, human beings have developed the intellectual property system to incentivize and honor our creativity. How should IP adapt to the paradigm shift in creation then, to ensure that “machine creativity” will always be deployed to promote human creativity, rather than to displace it? This is the theme our class aims to explore. At this crucial inflection point, together with you - we aim to break some ground in how IP could continue to facilitate human creativity in an AI-powered age, by considering the following issues:
The technological and epistemological underpinnings for the emerging human + AI creative synergies;
The challenges to the patent doctrine of inventorship by the new inventing paradigm;
The challenges to the patent doctrine of non-obviousness by the new inventing paradigm;
The challenges to the patent doctrine of enablement by the new inventing paradigm;
The challenges to the copyright doctrines of authorship and originality by the new creative paradigm;
Potential copyright infringement issues involved with the training and outputs of Generative AI;
The defense of fair use / transformative use in the context of Generative AI;
Trademark law in the “AI age”;
The interplay of intellectual property and antitrust in the “AI age”.
Theoretical frameworks for justifying intellectual property in the “AI age”: the divergent foundations of utilitarianism and normative rights; the principle of dignity – how does the theoretical framework inform doctrinal adaptations?
The interplay of intellectual property and human rights in the “AI age”;
As you see, we are indeed exploring some uncharted territories here. In this class, we consider our roles as less of the conventional lecturer-students relationship, but more of a fellowship – alongside each other as co-adventurers into this enchanting new world. Therefore, you will be challenged to act more like a proactive researcher, including reading the assigned issues and materials carefully, conducting your independent research if necessary (centering on the outlined issues in discussion), actively participating in the class discussion, and producing a well-researched and reasoned final essay on an IP issue you identified as particularly challenging in the “AI age”. As instructors, we will outline the major issues to be discussed in each class, provide basic reading materials (including mandatory reading and elective materials), and moderate the class discussion. Hopefully, it will be a fun and fulfilling journey for each one of us.
Attendance at the first class is mandatory for all currently enrolled and waitlisted students; any currently enrolled or waitlisted students who are not present on the first day of class (without prior permission of the instructor) will be dropped. The instructor will continue to take attendance throughout the add/drop period and anyone who moves off the waitlist into the class must continue to attend or have prior permission of the instructor in order not to be dropped.
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Requirements Satisfaction:
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Exam Notes: (P) Final Paper
(Subject to change by faculty member only through the first two weeks of instruction)
Course Category: Intellectual Property and Technology Law
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Books:
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