The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) has amended the Telemarketing Sales Rule (“TSR”). The simplest change is the expansion of the TSR to explicitly cover all business-to-business (“B2B”) telemarketing and artificial intelligence-enabled calls, which takes effect on May 16, 2024. Oddly, the only B2B calls previously covered by the TSR were those selling office and cleaning supplies.
Next year will likely see recommendations and rules from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the U.S. Copyright Office in relation to artificial intelligence and its impact on intellectual property. Recognizing the lack of laws governing AI, on October 20, 2023, President Biden issued an Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence (Order). The Order acknowledges AI’s “extraordinary potential for both promise and peril,” and parts of the Order deal specifically with intellectual property.
2024 is poised to be a year that the FTC increases its authority over the abuse of artificial intelligence in advertising. FTC chair Lina M. Khan wrote in a New York Times opinion piece, “As companies race to deploy and monetize A.I., the FTC is taking a close look at how we can best achieve our dual mandate to promote fair competition and to protect Americans from unfair or deceptive practices.” In late November, the FTC authorized its staff members to begin issuing non-public subpoena-like information demands for products and services that use or claim to be produced using AI. One of the FTC’s main concerns will be how AI uses consumer data. For example, in 2023, Amazon was accused of, and settled charges, that its Alexa software indefinitely kept recordings of children in order to perfect its voice recognition algorithm.
Chair of Olshan’s Intellectual Property Law Group and Co-Chair of the firm’s Brand Management & Protection Group Mary Grieco and Olshan Co-Managing partner, Chair of the firm's Advertising, Marketing & Promotion's Group and Co-Chair of the firm’s Brand Management & Protection Group Andrew Lustigman published a Law360 (subscription required) article entitled “Open Issues At The USPTO And Beyond After Biden AI Order” In the article, they discuss how President Biden’s Executive Order relating to AI could potentially make it harder for businesses to protect AI-created inventions.
Chair of Olshan’s Intellectual Property Law Group and Co-Chair of the firm’s Brand Management & Protection Group Mary Grieco and Olshan Co-Managing partner, Chair of the firm's Advertising, Marketing & Promotion's Group and Co-Chair of the firm’s Brand Management & Protection Group Andrew Lustigman published a New York Law Journal (subscription required) guest column entitled “Will Biden’s AI Executive Order Give Clarity on the Issue of Inventorship?” concerning President Biden's AI Executive Order and how AI output will be categorized as intellectual property.