Overview
In the latest IAM Saturday Opinion, Tangibly's Chris Buntel and Tim Londergan explore how artificial intelligence is transforming the foundation of intellectual property. Using Gemini 2.5 Pro, they examine how AI is weakening the core legal standards that have long defined patents and trade secrets.
The article builds on Marc Andreessen's 2011 essay Why Software Is Eating the World and argues that what software did to business, AI is now doing to innovation and IP protection.
Their argument is stark and urgent. AI is fundamentally challenging and reshaping the longstanding pillars of intellectual property law. The traditional protections offered by patents and trade secrets are becoming increasingly vulnerable as AI's predictive capabilities grow exponentially, threatening to make human-centric innovation obsolete.
Key Takeaways
Existential Crisis for IP Law
AI's ability to rapidly process vast datasets and generate insights is beginning to distort core IP legal standards. What qualifies as "non-obvious" in patent law or "not readily ascertainable" in trade secret law becomes far less meaningful when machines can predict the next invention or deduce a competitor's process from public data.
Adapt or Be Devoured
Companies must rethink their IP strategy now or risk losing everything. AI will not just recreate your innovation. It will digest it, learn from it, and recombine it into something new. The window to act is closing.
"Those who fail to adapt will find their most precious intellectual property not just eaten, but digested and re-synthesized by the ever-learning, ever-predicting mind of the machine."
The full opinion article was published on IAM and authored by Chris Buntel and Tim Londergan.
Read the full article on IAM: AI Is Eating Your IP