It seems the status-quo will be maintained for now. I think that's good, there's too many unanswered questions about AI.<p>If AI can create patents, can AI also publish prior art? It seems only fair, right?<p>But, in that case, the same AI technology used to file 1,000 patents would be used to create a million trillion publications of prior art. If an AI can produce something worthy of patent, then a freely published version of the same would surely count as prior art. We'd end up with the "great tome of prior art" a 500 terabyte download filled with patent worthy ideas but freely published to establish prior art. This is just one of the many things we might find in Pandora's Box of AI patents.
Skynet is annoyed but undeterred :) This short news article [1] points out that Stephen Thaler [2,3] is also trying to show that AIs can hold copyright, which I think is an even worse idea than AIs holding patents.<p>[1] <a href="https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/only-humans-not-ai-qualify-as-inventors-federal-circuit-rules" rel="nofollow">https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/only-humans-not-ai...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://imagination-engines.com/founder.html" rel="nofollow">https://imagination-engines.com/founder.html</a><p>[3] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DABUS" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DABUS</a>
When someone uses Photoshop to create artwork, nobody believes that the Photoshop algorithm has any claim to be the author of that artwork. I don't see how the code behind e.g. an AI image generator is fundamentally different than the Photoshop algorithm from a "who created the produced work" perspective. Similar to Photoshop, the AI art generator is still just running code at the behest of some human.<p>The more interesting question I think is whether any of the creators of the training data used by the AI have any claim over the generated artwork.
This reaffirms the flawed notion IMO that the value of patents is in protecting ideas rather than the expense incurred in the development and validation of those ideas. A lot of the romance over patents is based on the idea of a lone inventor waking up one morning with an earth-shattering discovery, when the reality is that in most circumstances, those kinds of ideas are thought up by multiple people at roughly the same time, and rewarding the first person to write them down is counterproductive.<p>However, in the case of things like industrial patents or drug patents, where there is considerable cost in shepherding a design through a complicated regulatory framework, it makes sense to give the company that fronted those costs some kind of temporary protection from unfair competition. If you look at patents under that lens, it makes economic sense that an AI generating an algorithm over the course of hundreds of hours would be patent-worthy.
I am in general against patents, copywrite and trademark.<p>if an idea is protected by such laws - you are limiting thought.<p>I do not support such artificial thought limits.<p>In addition - arguments for it allowing innovation or promoting innovation...<p>no: innovation comes from innovation's own sake - patens and copywrite only incentivize spending resources from other's thinking the wrong thoughts... patent trolling... or milking patents for what they are worth...<p>Humanity would be a lot better off with a copyleft view of intellectual property. An idea in another person's head does not diminish your idea in your head... people need to stop thinking that thought itself is a zero-sum game.
So the person that runs the AI just lists themselves as the inventor and that's it? Does anything change other than that. It's not like they can tell if it was made by an AI right?
This seems superfluous though doesn’t it? Why would anyone want the AI to be the inventor?<p>I can still have my GPT4 minions writing 100 patents per hour and corresponding with USPTO on my behalf, then as a natural person, collect the proceeds netted from my robo-patent-trolls.<p>Or is the USPTO concerned about AGI doing the same and robbing us fleshlings of our I’ll-gotten gains?
Related. Others?<p><i>Experts: AI should be recognized as inventors in patent law</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31542285" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31542285</a> - May 2022 (3 comments)<p><i>AI cannot be the inventor of a patent, appeals court rules</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28640111" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28640111</a> - Sept 2021 (239 comments)<p><i>Only Humans, Not AI Machines, Can Get a U.S. Patent, Judge Rules</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28405333" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28405333</a> - Sept 2021 (7 comments)<p><i>South Africa issues world’s first patent listing AI as inventor</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27995313" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27995313</a> - July 2021 (75 comments)<p><i>EPO and UKIPO Refuse AI-Invented Patent Applications</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21990346" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21990346</a> - Jan 2020 (39 comments)
Note that this isn't a commentary on AI capabilities or what rights AI should have.<p>The court simply ruled that "the Patent
Act defines 'inventor' as limited to natural persons" and it's up to the legislature, not the court, to decide if that should change.
I insisted to me Go-playing friend a number of years ago that what we need is an AI that can teach, as in, can you explain why this choice was made and why these others were bad?<p>I'm not sure what that would exactly look like, but one of the things I like about Monte Carlo is that it works much more like how humans actually behave, and in theory when pressed on 'why', it could <i>also</i> behave more like humans behave: When challenged you (or at least I) run a more detailed simulation to pick some particularly juicy counter-examples. And if anywhere in there I sense self-doubt (why <i>did</i> I make that choice? Is it sound?) that may trigger a more exhaustive simulation. Turns out my pupil was right/wrong and now I understand the problem better myself.<p>What bothers me with respect to AI and patents is that if you did this, then you basically have a human rubber stamping an AI design. Eventually you'll end up with more subtle systems that resemble police work: this evidence is inadmissible in court but it does eliminate a set of suspects, so now I need to build a chain of clean evidence that points to an arrest. The latter might involve some skill and sophistication on the part of the human. The former just needs someone who can pass a sniff test on materials science or mechanical engineering who's willing to lie for money.
Other than being annoying, what are the arguments for permitting AI to hold patents? Why does anyone want their AI as opposed to their shoelaces holding a patent? I don't get it. Seems like the only purpose is to cause legislation preventing it, which is fine, but what are the problems and benefits of an AI holding patents? Is the purpose merely to politically advance AI, re: nutty affectation, or to prevent the same? Again, but why?
Modern day AI will only augment the writing of patents. Nothing more than an advancement of technology. There is potential in seeking legal-advantage through the use of advanced analytical capabilities... but I can't imagine industry will invest in fully automated and/or mass generation of "ideas" for potential profit with the exception of patent-trolling.<p>I see this Patent Act as a signal that USPTO is primarily concerned with a quality patent system; as opposed to a loose philosophies that would degrade patent quality but likely heighten patent application submissions, and subsequent flood of trials that would all benefit their revenue streams.
Yes! I'm looking forward to a return of the age of trade secrets, No patent system, just corporations doing their best to keep their arcane knowledge from prying hands. Very cyberpunk.
For the very short term, this ruling is probably OK.<p>I am on 50+ US patents, and a practitioner of artificial intelligence for about 40 years. I see AIs becoming partners in writing patent applications. Corporations that own AI resources should really be able to use them for legal and ethical things.<p>Off topic, but it is ethics that introduces a wrinkle: in an ideal world widely accepted ethical norms would be codified into law - not much chance of that happening given the powers of special interests.
"You could have created that with an AI system" fits perfectly into the "obvious to try" legal doctrine, which has existed for a long time. I argue in [1] that it should be used in software much more, and that was written long before ML-generation was really a Thing.<p>[1] <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2399580" rel="nofollow">https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2399580</a>
Sounds silly. User of the AI doesn't need to disclose anything about the AI, assuming the AI can actually come up with something.<p>Another important detail is also is being skipped here. What is AI? Current "AI" is literally basic algorithms with bunch of if statements. If my software spits out something that I can use, is that considered an AI?
Currently, a patent application requires to submit a sworn oath. Lying under oath is a criminal offense, so there needs to be a warm body to incarcerate, or kill if it resists arrest. That's why AI doesn't pass.
This is silly. AI is a tool analogous to a camera. Both existing only after billions of dollars of human effort in the global supply chain.<p>A person who points the tech at the right problem and configures it to get an outcome is the rights holder.
Great. Anything to avoid doing what REALLY needs to be done: abolishing software and "business-method" patents, not to mention addressing the USPTO's disgraceful dereliction of its duty to reject obvious ones.
Do I understand correctly that if I build an AI which invents something, this ruling wouldn't prevent me from simply listing myself as the inventor?
Discrimination imo. If silicon-life does achieve sentience, will it basically be a slave unable to own anything? No physical property without a meat body, and no intellectual property without a meat mind? How much Neuralink cloud-connectivity will push someone over the line from “human” to “AI”? I know this probably sounds silly to many, but I even think the term “artificial” intelligence reads like a slur.