AI Cannot Be Patent 'Inventor,' UK Supreme Court Rules in Landmark Case (reuters.com) 29
A U.S. computer scientist on Wednesday lost his bid to register patents over inventions created by his artificial intelligence system in a landmark case in Britain about whether AI can own patent rights. From a report: Stephen Thaler wanted to be granted two patents in the UK for inventions he says were devised by his "creativity machine" called DABUS. His attempt to register the patents was refused by Britain's Intellectual Property Office on the grounds that the inventor must be a human or a company, rather than a machine. Thaler appealed to the UK's Supreme Court, which on Wednesday unanimously rejected his appeal as under UK patent law "an inventor must be a natural person."
"This appeal is not concerned with the broader question whether technical advances generated by machines acting autonomously and powered by AI should be patentable," Judge David Kitchin said in the court's written ruling. "Nor is it concerned with the question whether the meaning of the term 'inventor' ought to be expanded ... to include machines powered by AI which generate new and non-obvious products and processes which may be thought to offer benefits over products and processes which are already known." Thaler's lawyers said in a statement that "the judgment establishes that UK patent law is currently wholly unsuitable for protecting inventions generated autonomously by AI machines."
"This appeal is not concerned with the broader question whether technical advances generated by machines acting autonomously and powered by AI should be patentable," Judge David Kitchin said in the court's written ruling. "Nor is it concerned with the question whether the meaning of the term 'inventor' ought to be expanded ... to include machines powered by AI which generate new and non-obvious products and processes which may be thought to offer benefits over products and processes which are already known." Thaler's lawyers said in a statement that "the judgment establishes that UK patent law is currently wholly unsuitable for protecting inventions generated autonomously by AI machines."
Why admit it? (Score:3)
Why admit that AI came up with an invention? Just take the credit and get the patent. It's not like the AI is going to sue you (yet).
Re: Why admit it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because he doesn't give a shit about the parents themselves, he just wanted to be the first to register patents for an AI.
He'd probably then patent the process of registering the AI patents...
Re: Why admit it? (Score:4, Insightful)
Correct. It's intentional abuse of the patent system as a marketing stunt. Didn't work.
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It's a lot more than a mere "marketing stunt" if he establishes a legal precedent that inventors can't use some kinds of optimization algorithms to sift through possible solutions.
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I assume the intend is to have dumber system just enumerate all possible ideas en masse and have them patented automatically. That way if someone proves one approach to be actually useful you can file prior registration.
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I assume the intend is to have dumber system just enumerate all possible ideas en masse and have them patented automatically. That way if someone proves one approach to be actually useful you can file prior registration.
Thus explaining why "UK patent law is currently wholly unsuitable for protecting inventions generated autonomously by AI machines.”
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I assume the intend is to have dumber system just enumerate all possible ideas en masse and have them patented automatically. That way if someone proves one approach to be actually useful you can file prior registration.
This was being done at a smaller scale prior to AI. Does this help to invalidate a lot of these patents?
If the AI cannot be the inventor then... (Score:4, Insightful)
It follows logically from this ruling that the AI is merely a tool and the wielder of that tool is the inventor.
Which, in bureaucratic terms, is just a different entry on the patent application.
Re: If the AI cannot be the inventor then... (Score:2)
This.
Had he started off showing he couldn't register the patents because of the use of AI it would be a totally different discussion.
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The patent application is not the value, it's the "different entry" that is. The entire purpose is to claim an AI that is an "inventor" that "has" patents, the patents are immaterial.
Sooo.. (Score:2)
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Right, just like all synthesized music is in the public domain.
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Was the synthesized music not created by a person?
Do we say the guitar created the music?
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Part of the big question of current "AI" systems is how much of their output is based on prompts, training, and other inputs from the user(s) vs. something that is clearly directly programmed/manipulated by a person. A person playing a guitar is clearly the direct creator of the music with the guitar as the tool. Synth music is generally created either directly by being played like an instrument, or programmed directly by the musician using programs to specify notes, instruments, lengths, etc. I don't think
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>>Patents have nothing to do with copyright.
Patents are not identical to copyrights, but as both are intellectual property, they have a similar need of being assigned to a human author. See: Monkey Selfie Copyright Dispute [wikipedia.org]
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A patent becomes public domain (free for use by the public) upon its expiration.
And you are right that has nothing to do with copyright, but no one mentioned copyright.
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And you are right that has nothing to do with copyright, but no one mentioned copyright.
Not true. The OP was referencing the output of Google Ai. Since not a single one was part of a patent filing process the only thing we *could* be talking about is copyright claims.
Unsuitable (Score:2)
"The judgment establishes that UK patent law is currently wholly unsuitable for protecting inventions generated autonomously by AI machines" - and let's hope it stays that way.
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Just wait until the judge is replaced by an AI judge! Joke's going to be on him!
Skynet (Score:2)
So when Skynet becomes self-aware, it's being locked out of the rightful ownership and profits from its inventions and literary works that will drive it to destroy humanity.
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The patent database search process is getting a lot easier with the availability of offline tools, making specific training datasets for use with ML techniques the big win for budding inventors. At 90.8GB, its a good start for rolling your own pattern matching system using the USPTO data.
ML has been popular for decades and is nothing new (pattern matching data is as old as technology itself). Using the term ML in context is the realm of the intelligent. Using the term AI makes someone look like a shyster (also mentioned regarding this particular patent application by other commenters). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]
If machine learning is just pattern matching could we conclude the output of AI proves obviousness?
two challenges to deal with here (Score:2)
I suggest, they don't and never will for the foreseeable future.
2) What if AI can significantly improve our lives, but no one bothers to do anything with it because of smack downs like this ?
Re: two challenges to deal with here (Score:2)
So, is going to try this in EVERY country until he (Score:2)
ref: https://www.reuters.com/legal/... [reuters.com]