Intellectual property rights should not be seen as a burden to artificial intelligence. They are a framework that gives AI the guide rails it needs to succeed and innovation the respect it deserves.
Vice President of Research and Innovation at the University of Kentucky, one of the largest land-grant institutions in the nation, Ian McClure has spent his career at the intersection of patents, transactions, and discovery.
In Episode 10 of this season’s Understanding IP Matters, McClure makes a case for IP’s role in AI that is both prescient and urgent: IP isn’t a burden on AI, he believes. IP rights like patents and copyrights provide the structure that makes AI growth more viable.
The University of Kentucky is not waiting for the AI revolution to arrive and ride its coat-tails — it is grasping it by the the collar right now. Under McClure’s leadership, UK has launched the Commonwealth AI Transdisciplinary Strategy — known internally as CATS AI — a $200 million, three-to-five-year initiative that touches every corner of the institution.
“The economic impact is localized when you do a startup — and that’s really important to a university like ours that needs to generate local businesses and jobs.”
From 30,000 students (a third of them first-generation college entrants) to several thousand faculty researchers and six hospitals, the challenge of AI adoption at UK is a microcosm of the challenges facing American society.
A Broad Spectrum
“We cross a very broad spectrum of use cases, levels of sophistication and understanding , as well as excitement and fear levels around AI,” McClure, immediate past president of the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM), told Understanding IP Matters host Bruce Berman recently.
“We’re a great little melting pot here — and frankly, probably an amazing laboratory to study the adoption and broader ROI on AI use.”
To listen to “Building and AI Culture that Embraces IP” on audio, go here.
To watch on video, visit CIPU’s YouTube channel.
One of the most striking data points McClure shared came from a Northwestern University initiative called BRIDGE. When a university spins out a startup to commercialize its research, the local economic impact is roughly 50% greater than simply publishing a paper without IP protection.
“The economic impact is localized when you do a startup — and that’s really important to a university like ours that needs to generate local businesses and jobs.”
When McClure teaches IP law and management at both UK and Chicago-Kent College of Law, he returns repeatedly to a single principle he calls his mantra: “The value of intellectual property exists if, and to the extent, it’s enforceable.”
“We’re a great little melting pot here — and frankly, probably an amazing laboratory to study the adoption and broader ROI on AI use.”
This isn’t just a legal technicality, he says. Enforceability, as he depicts it, is a function of three related elements:
- The scope of the patent (what it “reads” on)
- The holder’s willingness to enforce it
- Their ability to effectively do so through the courts
Respect for IP Attracts Investment; Fuels Adoption
Universities have historically been reluctant to assert their patents — understandably so, given the sensitivity of donor, trustee and research partner relationships. McClure argues that without a credible threat of enforcement, IP protection becomes hollow, and the pipeline from research to public benefit breaks down.
“If there is no respect for patents that covers inventions, why would anyone collaborate with the university to take those license rights and spend hundreds of millions of dollars to get those products to market?”
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Ian McClure will be speaking on the panel “AI Adoption at the Crossroads – Transparency, Trust and (Some) Regulation” at the 9th IP Awareness Summit in Columbus on April 23rd. Tickets are still available. Register here. Space is limited.
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