On 28 May 2024, the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee (“the Committee”), appointed by the House of Commons, published its last report of the 2019 to 2024 Parliament in relation to the governance of AI, the impact of AI on different areas of society and the economy, and whether and how AI and its different uses should be regulated. The report highlighted (amongst other things) what it describes as “The Twelve Challenges of AI Governance”, which challenges include: the bias challenge; the privacy challenge; the access to data challenge; the open-source challenge; the liability challenge; and the copyright challenge.
Intellectual property, as with other forms of property, is an asset which should be protected and can be exploited. For charities, the notion of ‘commercialising’ assets may be perceived to be at odds with their charitable purpose. However, intellectual property rights are intrinsic to brand recognition and protection, which may in turn impact donations and funding. As such, charities are encouraged to think about intellectual property in the same way as commercial, for-profit entities – namely, as an asset which they ought to protect and on which they may wish to capitalise.
The JCT Design and Build Contract 2024 was recently published – the first of the updated ‘2024’ suite of JCT contracts. It isn’t a drastic re-write of the 2016 edition but there are some important changes to know about:
Early stage companies are normally set up by the person that is the driving force behind the new enterprise. There will come a time when shares are issued in return for new investment, to secure specialist expertise or to incentivise employees to stay with the company and together develop the enterprise.