Investors and innovators in Cambridge and beyond are being pushed to reassess how intellectual property rights interact with rapid advances in artificial intelligence, as legal obligations and liabilities evolve across the innovation life cycle. From the origination of ideas through funding, commercialisation and enforcement of rights, parties are increasingly expected to demonstrate “robust compliance and responsible innovation” to secure backing, and a clearer “Goldilocks zone” is emerging in which artificial intelligence businesses can grow sustainably. Insights from recent fundraising trends over 2025 suggest that market appetite is aligning with businesses that can navigate this shifting legal terrain with confidence.
That shift is set to accelerate in the coming months across three core intellectual property regimes: patents, copyright and trade marks. In February 2026, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom issued a seminal decision that has upended decades of patent practice in the UK by holding that an invention directed at artificial neural networks is not, as a matter of law, excluded from patent protection by virtue of being a computer program. This ruling opens a clearer path for patent protection of certain artificial intelligence technologies, challenging long standing assumptions about what can be patented in software driven innovation and forcing both applicants and examiners to recalibrate their strategies.
At the same time, high profile disputes are redefining how copyright and trade mark law apply to artificial intelligence models and their outputs. Getty Images will appeal the High Court’s recent finding that the import into the UK of Stability AI’s Stable Diffusion is not contrary to UK copyright law, while Stability AI will seek permission to appeal the High Court’s finding that output from its models is a commercial communication by Stability itself, leaving it open to claims of trade mark infringement from rightsholders who have secured new trade mark rights specifically targeted at artificial intelligence models. Although such disruption can be unsettling for businesses, it also creates a moment to reexamine fundamental assumptions about systems, products and risk. Careful yet confident engagement with these legal developments is presented as the best route to lasting and meaningful change, with further decisions expected to influence the adoption of artificial intelligence across all industries.
