The Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) hosted a public consultation on its draft Guidelines on the Registrability of AI Systems and AI-Related Works on September 10 and 11 2026.
The Philippines has a National AI Strategy that recognises the need to maximise its benefits but at the same time address possible risks by way of policies and governance frameworks for the responsible use of AI. These guidelines are intended to clarify the registrability of works involving AI and ensure the consistent application of the requirements of copyright protection and registration.
The Philippines is a member of the Berne Convention, and under Republic Act 8293 (the IP Code), copyright protection is automatic from the moment of creation; hence, registration is optional but desirable, particularly when filing a suit for infringement, because it is prima facie evidence of ownership of the work.
The salient points of the guidelines are as follows.
Applicability of the IP Code – the Copyright Registration Rules and its prescribed forms under the IP Code shall apply to applications covered by the guidelines.
Disclosure of AI use – the applicant shall disclose the use of generative AI in the creation of the work.
Human creative contribution and originality – a work involving the use of an AI system shall be registrable only to the extent that it contains original expression attributable to human creative contribution satisfying the originality requirement under prevailing jurisprudence. The mere provision of a prompt, instruction, or other input to an AI system shall not, by itself, establish sufficient human creative contribution.
Evaluation of AI-related applications – in evaluating whether the claimed expression satisfies the requirements of human authorship, originality, and the minimum degree of creativity, the IPOPHL may use the following factors, which shall be considered in their totality:
The nature and extent of the human creative contribution;
The nature and extent of the AI system’s role in the creation of the work;
The manner in which AI-generated elements were selected, modified, arranged, or incorporated into the work; and
The information and materials submitted by the applicant.
Who shall be considered authors? The human person who contributed the original expression in the following works: AI-assisted, AI-enhanced, hybrid, or AI-generated output. There must be sufficient original human expression in the creative work.
AI system – where an AI system embodies a copyrightable computer program, the author and copyright owner shall be determined in accordance with the IP Code and applicable law. The AI system itself shall not be considered an author or copyright owner. Registration of an AI system shall cover only the copyrightable expression embodied in the computer program. Registration shall not confer copyright in:
AI training data;
Works or materials used as AI training data;
AI outputs; or
Material that does not form part of the copyrightable computer program.
Examples of registrability for AI-assisted and AI-enhanced works – as indicated earlier, an AI-assisted work may be registrable to the extent that it contains original expression resulting from human creative contribution satisfying the originality requirement under the IP Code and Philippine jurisprudence:
AI-assisted literary work – an author uses an AI system to suggest alternative wording or organise portions of a manuscript but selects, revises, and creatively arranges the resulting text; and
An AI-enhanced work may be registrable to the extent that the underlying work and the human-created additions or modifications contain original expression satisfying the originality requirement under prevailing jurisprudence.
