Intellectual property and AI: a bad romance?

The topics du jour for many local business and legal conferences continue to be about AI, “digital transformation,” “technology x [fill-in-the-blanks].” Discussions, however, tend to be generalized. Real takeaways can get drowned by the usual discourse on AI’s utility and inevitability and/or warnings about the loss of a competitiveness for businesses who fail to adopt AI.

What might be a more useful approach is to focus on clear, discrete issues.

A panel discussion titled “You Prompt It, You Own It? Intellectual Property in the AI Era,” conducted last March during The Legal 500 GC Summit 2026, tried to do just that. Despite the shortness of the session, the panel members were able to identify key legal issues arising from the impact of AI use on intellectual property (IP) and set out specific views under current law.

I am sharing some of the talking points below:

1. What is the core IP problem with AI?

It was pointed out that the foundational idea of IP law is that intellectual works are created by humans, and AI challenges that concept. Thus, the questions that need to be confronted: Are AI-generated works even protectable? Who owns AI-generated works? How do you enforce IP rights over AI-generated works?

2. Who owns AI-generated work under IP law?

So who owns AI-generated work? Resolving this question may depend on what kind of asset is involved. A panel member noted that AI-generated trademarks should be registrable because Section 121 of the Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines (IP Code) does not distinguish between trademarks that are created by humans and those generated by AI. Copyright, on the other hand, more readily triggers the IP law notion that only humans can create, and indeed the IP Code provides that only natural persons (i.e. “authors”) can be owners of copyrighted works.

3. What are some of the IP risk mitigants in using AI?

A common (and probably the most practical) approach to dealing with AI-triggered risks for IP is documentation — whether it is about setting out who owns what (e.g., whatever is produced by developers for a client) or seeking representations of non-infringement. Of course, the context for the protection’s operation is defined — parties contractually dealing with each other, and essentially assigning risk via agreement. However, the utility of the protection can depend on whether there can be meaningful recourse against an infringing party.

4. How would enforcement play out when your AI produces infringing content?

One of the panel members, Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) Bureau of Legal Affairs, Director Christine V. Pangilinan-Canlapan, highlighted the dispute resolution mechanisms available at the IPOPHL, such as mediation through its Alternative Dispute Resolution Services (ADRS), as well as arbitration. Director Canlapan also pointed out that the Bureau of Legal Affairs of the IPOPHL, as a quasi-judicial entity, would likely follow the Supreme Court’s lead pursuant to the Supreme Court’s new governance framework on the use of “human-centered augmented intelligence.”

5. What issues about AI and IP should rightly keep in-house counsel up at night?

The answers from the panel? It is crucial that businesses be transparent to the IPOPHL about their use of AI when seeking to register their IP.

General counsels should carefully vet the AI solutions that they will be using.

It is important that business teams understand that IP registrations and recordals are privileges and that companies should use their IP assets in a responsible way.

In-house counsels should be attentive and agile, and know where the risks are, particularly where AI is used in their IP.

Taking the cue from this panel, business teams that want to get a more useful, practical handle on AI should try to first identify which specific areas (labor, consumer protection privacy, special regulations) when juxtaposed with AI, worries them the most, and then seek more in-depth legal discussion about that juxtaposition.

Aside from Director Canlapan, the other panel members were Kristian Nico Calugay Acosta (Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel of the CTI Group), William Chino T. Adasa (Enterprise Account Director of Amazon Web Services), and Ma. Patricia B. Paz-Jacoba (Partner at SyCip Salazar Hernandez & Gatmaitan). Her colleague, Leo Abot, moderated the panel.

The views expressed herein are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of her office as well as FINEX.

Rose Marie M. King-Dominguez is a senior partner of SyCip Salazar Hernandez & Gatmaitan and the head of the firm’s Special Projects Department. She is a FINEX member.