• Tue. Feb 11th, 2025

SSAR Publishers

Scholar Scientific and Academic Research Publishers

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND ITS APPLICABILITY TO PATENT AND DESIGNS DISPUTE IN NIGERIAN INDUSTRIAL PROPERTY SYSTEM

Abstract: Industrial property is at the heart of technological contraptions and all other forms of industrialization, including Artificial Intelligence (AI). In fact, with ideas and inventions as the ‘coinage’ of the twenty-first century, the effect which digitization has on Industrial property is even more profound. Invariably therefore, Industrial property has had one of the longest and most interesting relationships with technological advancement which has, overtime demanded that there must be a concurring review of the laws for each advancement in technology to ensure that rights are managed properly and disputes resolved efficiently. In pursuance of these, AI programs which aid patent search and analysis, create infringement claims and documents, as well as make evidence-of-use collections for patent and designs (P & D) dispute resolution have been applied across the globe. However, due to some notable constraints and uncertainties, AI has not been sufficiently applied to the Nigerian Industrial system and this has further amplified the challenges already encountered in the system, especially as it concerns dispute and dispute resolution. This paper therefore adds to the extant literature on the subject by adeptly discussing the essentials of the integration of AI in Nigeria’s Industrial property system. In particular, the article analyses the complexities and challenges arising from this application, the feasibility, legal implications and the benefits it brings to the terrain of P & D dispute in Nigeria. It further delves into the extant impacts of this integration on the global landscape, aptly weighing the demands of AI on the existing legal framework for P & D – The Patent and Designs Act of 1971 – while also seeking ways to strike a correlative balance between them, with emphasis on maintaining efficient and timely regulations in Nigeria’s Industrial property system.

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence (AI), Patents, Designs, Dispute, Industrial Property.