Artificial Intelligence (AI)

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In his petition for certiorari, Stephen Thaler had asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the Federal Circuit decision in which the court ruled that artificial intelligence (AI) could not be listed as the sole inventor.  However, the Supreme Court has now denied Thaler’s petition, and it is now effectively up to Congress to act to promote any change on the issue.  As Thaler noted in his petition, this issue is unlikely to be appealed to the Supreme Court again.   Particularly, the Federal Circuit has already denied en banc rehearing; additionally, the Federal Circuit is the only court of appeals with jurisdiction over questions of patent law, so no circuit split will occur.  Indeed, as the law is essentially settled at this point, Applicants are unlikely to even file patent applications listing AI as the sole inventor, and thus the fact pattern is unlikely to repeat itself.Continue Reading The Future of AI Inventorship Following Denial of Stephen Thaler’s Petition

PatentNext Takeaway: The U.S. Copyright Office originally granted copyright registration to a comic book titled “Zarya of the Dawn.” However, upon learning that the comic book included images created by an AI tool, the Office canceled the original registration but allowed a new registration more narrowly focused on the contributions of the human author, namely the text of the comic book and the selection of arrangements of the AI-generated images. Continue Reading U.S. Copyright Office Partially Allows Registration of Work having AI-generated Images (“Zarya of the Dawn”)

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence (AI) model developed by OpenAI. In particular, ChatGPT is a type of “language” model designed to respond with a natural language reply when prompted with a text-based question. The “Chat” in ChatGPT refers to this question-and-answer design, where ChatGPT behaves like a ChatBot. Continue Reading ChatGPT and Intellectual Property (IP) related Topics

PatentNext Summary: Following the August 2022 Federal Circuit decision in Thaler v. Vidal, 43 F.4th 1207 (Fed. Cir. 2022), in which the court ruled that artificial intelligence (AI) could not be an inventor by itself, the USPTO has now requested comments regarding AI and inventorship. Continue Reading USPTO Request for Comments on AI as an Inventor

PatentNext Summary: Software and computer-implemented inventions (CII) have experienced explosive growth in recent years. This article looks at laws of jurisdictions in Southeast Asia, comparing the status of enforcement and protection of software and CII in various Southeast Asia countries.Continue Reading Patenting Software And Computer-Implemented Inventions In Southeast Asia  

PatentNext Summary: Artificial Intelligence (AI) typically involves certain common aspects such as training data and AI models trained from that training data. Nonetheless, a recent Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) decision found that it is not always obvious to combine these common aspects to render an AI-based medical device invention unpatentable.Continue Reading PTAB finds Artificial Intelligence (AI) Medical Device Patent not so Obvious

PatentNext Summary: In August 2022, the Federal Circuit in Thaler v. Vidal held that U.S. patent law requires a “human” inventor. In 1884, the U.S. Supreme Court in Burrow-Giles Lithographic Co. v. Sarony held that a human could be the “author” of a photograph. In both cases, a type of “machine” was used to produce an output. Namely, in Thaler a “creativity machine” (a type of Artificial Intelligence (AI)) output and conceived the subject matter of a patent application allegedly without human involvement. In Burrow-Giles a camera output (captured) a photograph, but with human involvement (i.e., the photographer selected and arranged the scene of the photograph). While the Thaler court found that a machine alone cannot be an inventor, it raised the possibility of AI-assisted inventorship that included human involvement (e.g., sole or joint inventorship). Future courts considering the issue of AI inventorship could find the 1884 case of Burrow-Giles instructive, where the photographer’s selection and arrangement for the scene of a photograph in 1884 provides a useful analogy to a modern-day human AI developer’s selection and arrangement of training data, hyperparameters, or other features typically required to train and/or use an AI model.
Continue Reading The Curious Case of Burrow-Giles Lithographic (an 1884 U.S. Supreme Court decision involving “new” camera technology), and how it could help Shape Today’s Thinking on Artificial Intelligence (AI) Inventorship

PatentNext Summary: The Legal Board of Appeal (the “Board”) of the European Patent Office (EPO) recently suggested that the owner of an artificial intelligence (AI) machine could possibly be listed as an inventor of an AI-generated Invention. This suggestion arguably opens the door for companies or individuals, who own or use AI-generating machines, to designate themselves (instead of the AI machine) as the “inventor” on a patent application, even where the invention was wholly conceived by the AI machine itself.
Continue Reading European Patent Office (EPO) Suggests that the Owner of an Artificial Intelligence (AI) Machine Could be Listed as the Inventor of an AI-Generated Invention

PatentNext Summary: Artificial Intelligence (AI) Patent Application filings continue their explosive growth trend at the U.S. Patent Office (USPTO). At the end of 2020, the USPTO published a report finding an exponential increase in the number of patent application filings from 2002 to 2018. This trend has continued. In addition, current data shows that AI-related application filings pertaining to graphics and imaging are taking the lead over AI modeling and simulation applications.
Continue Reading AI Patent Filings | Explosive Growth Trend at the USPTO

I have been monitoring patent application filings around the world that list DABUS (the “Device for the Autonomous Bootingstraiming of Unified Sentience”) as the sole inventor. At issue is whether an Artificial Intelligence (AI) machine alone can be listed as an inventor on a patent application. A detailed chart, with country-by-country decisions, can be found here: Can an Artificial Intelligence (AI) be an Inventor? 

In today’s posting, I provide updates to this article. These come from the respective decisions of the patent offices, or related appellant courts, of New Zealand, EPO, and the UK.Continue Reading Updates on AI Inventorship: New Zealand, the EPO, and the UK allow an Artificial Intelligence (AI) machine to be listed as a Joint Inventor along with at least one Human Inventor