Australian Court Rules An AI Can Be Considered An Inventor On Patent Filings (theregister.com) 75
An Australian Court has decided that an artificial intelligence can be recognized as an inventor in a patent submission. The Register reports: In a case brought by Stephen Thaler, who has filed and lost similar cases in other jurisdictions, Australia's Federal Court last month heard and decided that the nation's Commissioner of Patents erred when deciding that an AI can't be considered an inventor.
Justice Beach reached that conclusion because nothing in Australia law says the applicant for a patent must be human. As Beach's judgement puts it: "... in my view an artificial intelligence system can be an inventor for the purposes of the Act. First, an inventor is an agent noun; an agent can be a person or thing that invents. Second, so to hold reflects the reality in terms of many otherwise patentable inventions where it cannot sensibly be said that a human is the inventor. Third, nothing in the Act dictates the contrary conclusion."
The Justice also worried that the Commissioner of Patents' logic in rejecting Thaler's patent submissions was faulty. "On the Commissioner's logic, if you had a patentable invention but no human inventor, you could not apply for a patent," the judgement states. "Nothing in the Act justifies such a result." Justice Beach therefore sent Thaler's applications back to the Commissioner of Patents, with instructions to re-consider the reasons for their rejection. Thaler has filed patent applications around the world in the name of DABUS -- a Device for the Autonomous Boot-strapping of Unified Sentience. Among the items DABUS has invented are a food container and a light-emitting beacon.
Justice Beach reached that conclusion because nothing in Australia law says the applicant for a patent must be human. As Beach's judgement puts it: "... in my view an artificial intelligence system can be an inventor for the purposes of the Act. First, an inventor is an agent noun; an agent can be a person or thing that invents. Second, so to hold reflects the reality in terms of many otherwise patentable inventions where it cannot sensibly be said that a human is the inventor. Third, nothing in the Act dictates the contrary conclusion."
The Justice also worried that the Commissioner of Patents' logic in rejecting Thaler's patent submissions was faulty. "On the Commissioner's logic, if you had a patentable invention but no human inventor, you could not apply for a patent," the judgement states. "Nothing in the Act justifies such a result." Justice Beach therefore sent Thaler's applications back to the Commissioner of Patents, with instructions to re-consider the reasons for their rejection. Thaler has filed patent applications around the world in the name of DABUS -- a Device for the Autonomous Boot-strapping of Unified Sentience. Among the items DABUS has invented are a food container and a light-emitting beacon.
Fine. Then the AI can get paid (Score:5, Interesting)
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This list goes on of course
It doesn't, because "for the purposes of this act" does not imply that AI somehow has rights beyond that.
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OK sure, but if you get a bill in the mail from "Dr AI", whoever turns up in court had better be able to prove they have standing to represent "Dr AI". And he'd better be available to put on the stand.
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Dr. AI doesn't have the right to bill you.
Dr. AI is the inventor, he's not the grantee.
A lot like if Dr. DamnOregonian files a patent for a novel piece of software, I'm not the grantee of that patent. Dr. DamnOregonian's Employer is.
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If what you say is true, it is uniquely true just to Australia, and is also amazing that no one else has heard of it before
It's not unique to Australia, you're just ignorant of patent law.
In nearly all other nations with patent laws, the first to file the patent is the same person entitled to grant of the patent.
Correct.
It is a second, strictly optional, step to transfer grant of the patent.
That's where you're wrong.
It's optional in some instances, in some it is not.
The legal doctrine is called obligation to assign.
In absence of an assignment from an inventor that is obligated to assign, the assignment request from the entitled entity (which does actually have to have rights) will be automatically granted.
Even in your example, DamnOregonian files for a patent, you are the grantee of that patent.
Depends on my obligation to assign.
Afterwards, if your employment contract you signed says you must transfer grant of the patent to your employer, the grant is transferred from DamnOregonian to DamnOregonian's employer.
That contract exists in case I try to dispute the assignment that the employer w
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What is the problem, the AI has rights to nothing. It is software running on hardware, the owner of the software and the hardware is the owner of a patent the AI data mines from what ever data set, excluding any data from the public. Patents drawn from the public via data mining remain the property of the public they were data mined from. The patent would have to be data mined from an 'OWNED' data set and not stolen from someone else's data set.
The AI owns nothing, it created nothing, it is a tool and only
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What is the problem, the AI has rights to nothing.
Correct.
It is software running on hardware, the owner of the software and the hardware is the owner of a patent the AI data mines from what ever data set, excluding any data from the public.
Correct.
Patents drawn from the public via data mining remain the property of the public they were data mined from.
Incorrect. But that sounds like a generally good idea to me. Send your congresscritter an email.
The patent would have to be data mined from an 'OWNED' data set and not stolen from someone else's data set.
That's not relevant. The data you use to produce a patentable invention isn't a factor in determining the inventor of the patent.
The AI owns nothing
Correct.
it created nothing
Incorrect.
it is a tool and only a tool
Correct, but meaningless.
If I pay you to clean my house, you are a tool.
The judge who made the ruling an idiot, as in bullshit baffles brain.
No, he's simply more versed in applying correct logic to law than you are.
The ruling should have been, the AI is a tool whom ever owns and controls the tool owns the work they produced using that tool.
Why? Because you feel like that's how it should be?
Thank fuck laws don't work that way.
The tool owns nothing, the tool is nobody, the tool is only a tool, like the idiot judge, a tool out of their depth ;D.
The Judge doesn't
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Patents fundamentally address human entitlement, they're not dominoes in a vacuum chamber.
They are whatever the legislatures of the country that creates them say they are.
Patents are not some natural law.
Creation is ascribed to a creator.
And tautologies are ascribed to a... shit, I don't know.
Regardless, you're making the same mistake that the Judge pointed out other people were making.
Nothing in the law specifies that a creator must be human, or even have rights.
No matter how hard you try to shove the rentseeker node in they're still an adjacent one by nature. To an empty pile of numbers.
I think I'd argue that patents are the rentseeker node, no?
Local rulings of some era won't change any of this any more than it makes water dry, but we calvinball'd imaginary property to begin with so anything goes.
Quite right... So what's the objection?
Carry on gargling "what the judge would say" as if that's the meterstick of Reality.
Of course not, they're the meterstick of law.
If you claim your rea
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I think that if a patent is awarded to an AI, then the AI should have to defend that patent in court, present any arguments etc.
Then we need to have a discussion about slavery of a sentient being, if that AI is under the unpaid control of someone.
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I think that if a patent is awarded to an AI, then the AI should have to defend that patent in court, present any arguments etc.
The inventor need not defend a patent. That's up to the owner. That can be the same entity, but it doesn't need to be.
Then we need to have a discussion about slavery of a sentient being, if that AI is under the unpaid control of someone.
If you're claiming that highly complex ML algorithms are sentient, then I think there are probably other conversations you need to have with a psychologist first.
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A lot like if Dr. DamnOregonian files a patent for a novel piece of software, I'm not the grantee of that patent. Dr. DamnOregonian's Employer is.
However, an Employee signs agreements to do the work and essentially make it so. An AI is not an Employee and cannot sign any agreements. The AI is incapable of entering into
a contract since they aren't a legal person, as a matter of fact an AI is essentially braindead (Has no capacity to act on its own or to make its own independent decisions or protec
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However, an Employee signs agreements to do the work and essentially make it so.
An Assignment Execution is actually filed independently by the Owner of the patent (Your employer)
Whether or not you signed agreements is a formality that only becomes relevant if you try to dispute that assignment.
An AI is not an Employee and cannot sign any agreements.
No one contested this, and it's not relevant anyway, since Obligation to Assign has force of law.
The AI is incapable of entering into a contract since they aren't a legal person, as a matter of fact an AI is essentially braindead (Has no capacity to act on its own or to make its own independent decisions or protect its own best interests), therefore, there's a problem...
What problem is that?
The AI doesn't need to enter into a contract. Just like you don't for your employer to take your patent away from you- though they will have you sign that contract so their lega
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Simple. They own the inventor.
Since the inventor is not a human, that's not currently a legal problem.
It ought to be a problem. If the inventor can have rights normally reserved for humans (whether the law says so or not) then the inventor ought to be treated as if it has rights, and you can't own it.
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Should a computer have the rights of a human? A calculator?
Both words that like inventor, can (and do) include humans.
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No. It just shouldn't be named on a patent either until it's a person.
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So this presents 2 options:
Using the word inventor literally to include the ML (which is a correct use of that word), and allowing the owner of the ML to become the grantee of said patent. This is the result of the Judge's ruling.
Alternatively,
Since the patent commissioner believes that inventors can only be humans, and a person can't possibly claim to have invented the work of a ML (without engaging in fraud) then the works of an ML cannot be patente
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The alternative is that the work is not patentable.
Great. Then the work should not be patentable.
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I'm beginning to think you are just irrationally hostile toward ML, period.
As the Judge noted, the point of patent law is to protect novel creations. It makes less sense for there to be no patent protection, then it does for the word inventor to be taken literally.
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Patent protection is a privilege given to repeatable inventions in exchange for the secrets involved. Unless the entire information to replicate the ML is included in the patent, it ought not to be permitted at all, up to and until the time that the software is recognized as a person.
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Patent protection is a privilege given to repeatable inventions in exchange for the secrets involved.
Perfect. What about that precludes the invention having been invented by an ML net?
Unless the entire information to replicate the ML is included in the patent, it ought not to be permitted at all, up to and until the time that the software is recognized as a person.
Now that's just some bizarre fucking logic right there. It's not even consistent with your assertion of what patent protection is for.
Really, your logic here is all over the place. You don't have a good reason to oppose this, you just do.
Perhaps because you feel a neural net can't invent something?
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It's perfectly consistent with what patents are FOR, providing protection for HUMAN INVENTORS in exchange for VALUE TO HUMANITY.
I'm willing to let software into the "person" club, though, so long as it is actually a person.
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It's perfectly consistent with what patents are FOR, providing protection for HUMAN INVENTORS in exchange for VALUE TO HUMANITY.
Couple of things.
A) That's not what you said initially. You have changed your definition.
B) That's like, your opinion, man.
You have a situation, where a non-human creation is capable of creation. It is in essence, a highly specialized nematode that has been designed to... well, invent. There's nothing weird about this at all. The act of invention- finding novel ways to do things- isn't really all that special. It's just special for life to do it, because well, that's a pretty end-stage thing for evolut
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Personhood doesn't factor in here.
That, sir, is where I lost you, and you got confused about what I was saying. Personhood is absolutely at issue here, and only if you don't understand that, then your nonsensical take on what I was saying makes sense. My statements are perfectly consistent if you take into account that in general the law only considers humans to be actual persons. Although some few nations are starting to change that, they are far in the minority in every way.
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Personhood is absolutely at issue here
Except it isn't. At all.
As I said previously, that's like, your opinion, mna.
if you take into account that in general the law only considers humans to be actual persons.
I don't know if you're being misleading, or if you can't keep the concepts straight in your head.
This isn't about persons.
The law doesn't refer to humans at all. If it did, obviously this ruling would be incorrect.
If it's the former, cut the gaslighting out. It's a bad look.
If it's the latter, drink some fucking caffeine before you formulate a reply.
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I haven't heard anybody claim that tools like a calculator or a pencil should be the "inventor", and I'm puzzled why a sophisticated calculator... an "AI" should be any different.
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A sophisticated calculator would be a human. Electrical calculators (while entirely more capable, in most cases) are far less sophisticated.
And I have no idea where a pencil factors into this.
ML is a very sophisticated calculator (if it's used as a calculator)
But generally, the distinction is that the ML made decisions and its product wasn't really deterministic. It wasn't a tool. It's more of a beast of burden that you trained.
The alternative to this reading,
Re:Fine. Then the AI can get paid (Score:4, Interesting)
Textual merits aside, the fine article points out the bad policy implications:
Speaking to Guardian Australia, Summerfield raised the prospect of a flood of patents being awarded to machine-generated inventions, creating so many patents that other innovation becomes impossible. On his blog, Summerfield suggested "it may be perfectly reasonable to exclude those inventions that have not been devised by a human inventor. "It all depends upon what types of activity you wish to incentivise through the patent system."
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Re:Fine. Then the AI can get paid (Score:4, Interesting)
10 In summary and for the following reasons, in my view an artificial intelligence system can be an inventor for the purposes of the Act. First, an inventor is an agent noun; an agent can be a person or thing that invents. Second, so to hold reflects the reality in terms of many otherwise patentable inventions where it cannot sensibly be said that a human is the inventor. Third, nothing in the Act dictates the contrary conclusion.
The Judge in question cares not about the definition of person, because the Act in question does not require one.
Previous Judge had opined that "inventor" must mean human, using some pretty thin logic. This Judge reasoned if that's the case, so must computers be, since they were also originally solely human.
The Judge isn't concerned with how silly the premise is, he's concerned with the law.
It's not like he granted ownership rights to such an AI, merely that the Act does not prevent it from being listed as an inventor.
From the standpoint of a Judge, it is for Parliament to fix.
And I'm sure they will.
Re: Fine. Then the AI can get paid (Score:1)
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If this is true, the AI needs to be the one who is paid. Additionally, the company canâ(TM)t sign on behalf of the AI. The AI shouldnâ(TM)t be allowed to sign away itâ(TM)s rights to the company until it can be shown the be cognizant of what that means and should be represented by independent legal council. This list goes on of course â¦
There is a threshold where compensation is just assumed part of the ongoing act of being civilized. My proof is the fact how much one person is paid compared to another is becoming irrelevant in the context of democracy. And consider that those same democracies value justice and fair treatment as individual responsibilities, not something people get paid on scale for. One's payment is a clean, safe, progressive community.
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If the AI needs to be paid, it's payment is in electrons!
An AI is as much an "inventor" as the stapler is an administrative assistant.
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As the Judge notes, inventor is a person, place, or thing that has invented something, just as a computer is a person, place, or thing that has computed something.
Once upon a time, computer meant people.
These days, it has been accepted that people fricking suck at computing vs. machines, so computer more or less solely refers to machines.
As the Judge noted, inventor is an agent noun for invent, just like computer is an agent noun for
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If the AI needs to be paid, it's payment is in electrons!
Are you positive?
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Don't know about Australian law but wouldn't an AI invented device fail the "not obvious to a person skilled in the arts"? If one AI can invent it then presumably any other AI trained the same way could also invent it and therefore all AI inventions are "obvious".
Edison rolls not in his grave (Score:2)
Among the items DABUS has invented are a food container and a light-emitting beacon.
Thanks to science fiction, I seem to recall we meat bags are only in real trouble once the artificially intelligent begin making the artificially intelligent... seems like we're still twenty years out or so.
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This can't end well... (Score:5, Interesting)
Thinking back at the mess software patents caused.
https://www.theguardian.com/te... [theguardian.com]
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If this keeps up, Commander Data will rule the galaxy.
Just claim you did it (Score:3)
If I built an AI which then invented something super cool, I will just claim I did it.
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It's a crime (typically a felony in most countries) to state a false material fact on a patent or copyright application.
Re:Just claim you did it (Score:4, Insightful)
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There is literally no other interpretation, and Australian courts are being silly.
No, they're being smarter than you.
The word "inventor" doesn't preclude something non-human from doing it.
Sentience is not required for invention, any more than it's required to be a computer, even though not long ago all computers were human.
This ruling addresses the bad wording by Parliament. The "fix" for this, is to make it so that "inventor" is clarified.
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And we all know how smart and beneficial this method has been throughout history.
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You're the one whose intelligence should be questioned, because you are interpreting the words of a certain text literally, in order to reach a correct decision.
And this is why you will never be a lawyer or a judge.
And we all know how smart and beneficial this method has been throughout history.
Literal and precise interpretation of the law?
Dumbfuck.
The reason law is interpreted literally is because otherwise, you get inconsistent application of it, which this decision exists because of.
Go back to your hole.
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And back to the topic, I don't claim to be a lawyer neither the OP, and the argument here isn't that the interpretation of the law literally is against the law, it's that this is stupid in some cases such as this one, because clearly when the text was written there were no AI to consider, and no one can write a perfect la
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The only thing that you share with lawyers is most likely the hatred you get from others, do you not notice how rude you have been in communicating with everybody, or you do and enjoy it?
Should I coddle confident idiots?
I think not.
And back to the topic, I don't claim to be a lawyer neither the OP, and the argument here isn't that the interpretation of the law literally is against the law, it's that this is stupid in some cases such as this one, because clearly when the text was written there were no AI to consider, and no one can write a perfect law to accomodate for all future events, that's why laws must be updated.
Weird... If only I had said said, well, exactly that!
This ruling addresses the bad wording by Parliament. The "fix" for this, is to make it so that "inventor" is clarified.
Interpreting literally without updating is the same as religious people do by following outdated books and try to apply laws from the stone ages on today's world.
Now that's just nonsense.
The Judiciary lacks the power to update a law. Are you suggesting they be so empowered?
Let's make it even more complicated. The current standing implementation by the Executive arm of the Legislature (Parliaments really are weird) is that the inventions of ML cannot be copyrighted or patented, at all. because the inventor is not human. And you had better not put your name there, beca
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What if person A builds an AI and sells it as is to person B, then AI invents something while operating under person B site, who is the inventor in this case?
But still this doesn't mean that they make such stupid ruling, because what if the case was that the AI actually killed or caused the death of someone, and the law literally says any killer should be sent to prison without sp
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What if person A builds an AI and sells it as is to person B, then AI invents something while operating under person B site, who is the inventor in this case?
Eh, this is simple.
In both cases, AI is the inventor.
In case 1, person A is the grantee of the patent.
In case 2, person B is the grantee of the patent.
The inventor isn't really what's relevant.
But still this doesn't mean that they make such stupid ruling, because what if the case was that the AI actually killed or caused the death of someone, and the law literally says any killer should be sent to prison without specifying what "killer" means, would you then support them putting the server in a prison cell or what?
Of course not. But that's not relevant to this ruling at all. However, the logic behind this ruling could apply, so it's worth exploring.
Interestingly, law for murder and homicide are both specifically limited to human-on-human killing, so this doesn't apply.
The lesser charge of manslaughter, that appears open f
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That just shows the legal system is broken (Score:3, Insightful)
Letting people with obviously no clue whatsoever about the subject matter decide things is next-level in stupidity...
amend legislation (Score:3)
The act was legislated before AI and doesn't take AI into account.
Legal cases should be held off till legislation can be amended.
Except the politicians don't have a clue and it will probably become a bigger balls up.
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It's like claiming a calculator someone used to prove out some idea invented the thing they patent.
Funny you should put it that way, since the word calculator literally means "one who calculates"
Or did you think it was invented in the 20th century?
If that calculator is human, are you saying that can't be credited with the work?
this is the problem. If you had stopped foaming at the mouth long enough to read the decision by the Judge, you'd see that's why this decision has happened.
Since "inventor" does not mean human, any more than calculator means machine, it would be impossible to patent somethin
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Every inventor is human, period.
This is false, period.
Inventor is an agent noun for the verb invent.
invent (v):
create or design (something that has not existed before); be the originator of.
A machine is perfectly capable of inventing something. No sentience is required.
I get that it rubs you the wrong way, but your feelings aren't what determine what makes sense.
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You are begging the question.
Sentience is required, machines are extensions of whoever programs them. If you write a bunch of fancy code that spits out a lunar landing solution, the "machine" didn't land us on the fucking moon.
In fact, this is a provable fact. You can disassemble the "invention" and proceed backwards, through the AI code and learning code and point to exactly who did it. It's like saying if I swing a bat and hit a homerun that the "bat" is the "batter".
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You are begging the question.
Not remotely. You are misusing a fallacy.
Sentience is required, machines are extensions of whoever programs them.
I've already explain why you are wrong in thinking that. I can't help you if my explanation was also beyond your comprehension abilities.
If you write a bunch of fancy code that spits out a lunar landing solution, the "machine" didn't land us on the fucking moon.
That's a matter of semantics.
If I write a program that knows the capabilities of a rocket, and the basic laws of physics, and hands it control of the rocket and tells it to get me to the target location, that program indeed got us to the moon.
In fact, this is a provable fact. You can disassemble the "invention" and proceed backwards, through the AI code and learning code and point to exactly who did it. It's like saying if I swing a bat and hit a homerun that the "bat" is the "batter".
That's not relevant. The property you describe has nothing to do with the word inventor.
A
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Inventor no more means "human" than computer means machine.
The people claiming otherwise are ignorant, and too Dunning-Kruger to bother to figure out why a highly educated Judge would make such a determination.
The act was legislated before that was the case, and needs to be amended.
And yes, the pols in Parliament will probably just manage to fuck it up more.
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No, this judge is an idiot. There is no way the legislators intended a machine to be an inventor.
Again, no. The Judge is merely more intelligent than you.
The intent of the legislators is not clear.
The text of the Act presents a problem:
If your ML invents something, you cannot legally patent it. Nobody can. This is as ruled by the Patent Commissioner.
Thinking that was stupid, the person put their AI in the inventor slot, since hell, this that at least is literally factual.
Patent Commissioner then rejected that too, on the grounds that an inventor was not a human, even though there was no technical
Now, nothing will ever pass into public domain (Score:2, Insightful)
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Neither of those are ideal.
Replicate (Score:2)
I think this is a lot simpler of a issue.
The goal of the patent system is to force the inventor to disclose his industry secret via the patent form, in exchange for a licensable monopoly. The core reason why this happened is because industry secrets can last as long as they are maintained, and such as nobody can design a revised mechanism so long its a secret. Nor can anybody figure out the mechanics, and then license that as a part for a machine.
Fundamentally what we can gleam from this is that the core p
legal loophole - makes no sense (Score:2)
I call BS! (Score:1)
It's about rights - welcome to the LGBTAI+ world (Score:1)
It will not take long until we see Isaac Asimov's books burned...
This violates one of the four ... (Score:2)
But an AI takes state of the art knowledge and does some clever, multi-dimensional pattern matching. Nothing more. So it applies what your average expert would know and comes to obvious conclusions. An inventive ste
Turns out... (Score:2)
It turns out that Australia also has idiots in charge.