The Role of Intellectual Property Rights in the Technological Age

The last two decades have seen a huge technological development, also known as the technology explosion, making it easier for anyone to access any kind of information, including of course intellectual property, anywhere in the world, and this has created new challenges for the protection of intellectual property. But nowadays, technology not only allows access to any work of authorship or invention, it is also capable of creating works of authorship or inventions itself, leading legal scholars to debate whether works created by technology can be protected if they are not human‐made. As is well known, almost all national laws only recognise an author or inventor if it is a human‐made work, but what about a painting or invention created by artificial intelligence? Are such works becoming vulnerable and freely available to everyone today? The methodological basis of this article is based on general scientific approaches (analysis and synthesis, deduction and induction, comparison, analogy and a systemic and structural‐functional approach). The article also draws on court decisions, legislation, legal literature, publications and doctrine. Conclusions are drawn using the method of scientific induction and deduction. The aim of this article is to explain the importance of intellectual property protection in today's technological age, where intellectual property can be created not only by people but also by technology.