Will A.I. be Inventors in the Future?

AI and Patent Law at a Crossroads in the 2020s

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Should patents only be held by humans?

Hey Guys,

In early June, 2022 according to Reuters, Artificial intelligence can be a patent 'inventor,' U.S. appeals court told. A computer scientist on Monday tried to persuade a U.S. appeals court that his artificial intelligence system should be credited for two inventions it generated, in a novel dispute on the proper role of AI in patent law. The case is driving debate again around A.I. and patent law.

In the 2020s, Artificial Intelligence is getting more implicated in inventions in multiple domains. In 2020, a machine-learning algorithm helped researchers to develop a potent antibiotic that works against many pathogens (see?Nature?https://doi.org/ggm2p4; 2020).

Artificial intelligence (AI) is also being used to aid vaccine development, drug design, materials discovery, space technology and ship design. Within a few years, numerous inventions could involve AI. This is creating one of the biggest threats patent systems have faced.

The relationship to AI inventions, innovation and patent law is complicated.

The patent system?assumes that inventors are human. Inventions devised by machines require their own intellectual property law and an international treaty.

Experts: AI should be recognized as inventors in patent law

This week I heard a new argument. Governments around the world should pass intellectual property laws?that grant rights to AI systems, two academics at the University of New South Wales in Australia argued.

Alexandra George, and Toby Walsh, professors of law and AI, respectively, believe failing to recognize machines as inventors could have long-lasting impacts on economies and societies.?

"If courts and governments decide that AI-made inventions cannot be patented, the implications could be huge," they wrote in a comment article?published?in Nature.

"Funders and businesses would be less incentivized to pursue useful research using AI inventors when a return on their investment could be limited. Society could miss out on the development of worthwhile and life-saving inventions."

What is Human and what are the rights of A.I.?

Today's laws pretty much only recognize humans as inventors with IP rights protecting them from patent infringement. Attempts to overturn the human-centric laws have failed thus far in 2022.

Thaler vs. the Establishment

Stephen Thaler, a developer who?insists AI invented?his company's products, has sued trademark offices in multiple countries, including the US and UK to no avail.

George and Walsh are siding with Thaler's position. "Creating bespoke law and an international treaty will not be easy, but not creating them will be worse. AI is changing the way that science is done and inventions are made. We need fit-for-purpose IP law to ensure it serves the public good," they wrote.

The Status Quo Could Harm Innovation

Patent law is based on the assumption that inventors are human; it currently struggles to deal with an inventor that is a machine. Courts around the world are wrestling with this problem now as patent applications naming an AI system as the inventor have been lodged in more than 100 countries.

Some argue that incentives in the current system will slow down potentially meaningful inventions by A.I. that could as a sum-total be good for humanity at large.

• Several groups are conducting public consultations on AI and intellectual property (IP) law, including in the United States, United Kingdom and Europe.
• If courts and governments decide that AI-made inventions cannot be patented, the implications could be huge.
• Funders and businesses would be less incentivized to pursue useful research using AI inventors when a return on their investment could be limited.?Society could miss out?on the development of worthwhile and life-saving inventions.

As there is no?global body to regulate A.I., ethics and protect us from its future, these moral dilemmas are at the mercy of the global legal system that’s not designed or equipped to deal with such issues of the internet, let along the future of A.I.

Consensus has Yet to be Resolved on A.I. Patent Law

Rather than forcing old patent laws to accommodate new technology, the Australian researchers propose that national governments design bespoke IP law — AI-IP — that protects AI-generated inventions. Nations should also create an international treaty to ensure that these laws follow standardized principles, and that any disputes can be resolved efficiently. Researchers need to inform both steps.

The Foundations of Law Have no Conception of A.I.

Machines with the ability to innovate were not taken into account by the authors of the world’s first patent legislation, the Venetian Patent Statute of 1474. They were also not considered in the 1883 Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, which laid the groundwork for the worldwide patent system. Even in 1994, when the World Trade Organization concluded its Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights(TRIPS), AI-generated ideas were nearly unheard of.

There’s really no historical precedent for the legal concerns we are facing with technological innovation accelerated by machine learning.

What is patentable?

Generally, an invention must meet each of the following requirements before it can be patented.

??An invention?made by one or more inventors. This includes products, processes or methods in almost all fields of technology.

??Novel.?The invention does not already exist.

??Inventive step or non-obvious.?The invention would not be obvious to a ‘person skilled in the art’ who has ‘common general knowledge’ in that field.

??Capable of industrial application or utility.?The invention can be made or used in industry, does as is claimed and/or has economic significance.

All 164 World Trade Organization members must comply with these principles, standardized by the 1994 Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS).

Clearly A.I. is able in the 2020s to meet the said criteria nearly and sometimes on their own. Academics are noting this more and more and we can find abundant examples in the literature. Sometimes researchers don’t even understand how the A.I. arrived at the said result.

New technologies have challenged the system before. High-profile cases have tested whether genetic sequences, human-made living organisms and other objects could be patented. The central legal question in these cases was whether they were inventions at all. As Human and A.I. merge, blur and are a hybrid system, at what point does an A.I. get the credit for its work?

When pharma and science is augmented by A.I. directly, it’s becomes a hard argument to make.

A.I. is Challenging Norms of Patent Law

1. Inventions generated by AI challenge the patent system in a new way because the issue is about ‘who’ did the inventing, rather than ‘what’ was invented.
2. The first and most pressing question that patent registration offices have faced with such inventions has been whether the inventor has to be human. If not, one fear is that AIs might soon be so prolific that their inventions could overwhelm the patent system with applications.
3. Another challenge is even more fundamental. An ‘inventive step’ occurs when an invention is deemed ‘non-obvious’ to a ‘person skilled in the art’. This notional person has the average level of skill and general knowledge of an ordinary expert in the relevant technical field. If a patent examiner concludes that the invention would not have been obvious to this hypothetical person, the invention is a step closer to being patented.

According to Walsh and George, as argued in?a recent article in Nature, society urgently needs to consider the impact of AI on the innovation system, particularly on laws regarding intellectual property and patents.

However frankly if A.I. at rights to their own patents, the era of A.I invention would centralize wealth incredibly and be a new trend in terms of wealth distribution just like Silicon Valley has been. The?impact on wealth inequality in human systems could turn out to be very poor, since some human owns the A.I. smart machines.

DABUS

Can software be an “inventor”? This question has been the focus of some recent high profile court cases about an AI system called?DABUS?(Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience), created by Stephen Thaler, president and chief executive of US-based AI firm Imagination Engines.

However if A.I. could accumulate patents, it would reinforce winner-takes-all capitalism where the “best” A.I. would facilitate colossal advantages giving the corporate entities with the most A.I. talent a huge advantage further creating antitrust violation issues in our already broken system of innovation in business and the future of technology.

I don’t know what the answer is, I can see societal and human benefits to both sides. Since the invention of the internet our legal systems have been behind the pace of digital innovation and machine learning’s evolution complicates this lack of legal precedent and grey area. In applied A.I. ethics this is actually one of the greatest concerns not being met by the leaders of the world.

Thaler’s international legal team, led by Ryan Abbott from the University of Surrey, has filed applications to patent offices around the world in which DABUS is named as the sole inventor. These cases are likely the first to test whether an AI system can be recognized as an inventor under existing intellectual property laws. While DABUS is an important case, the feeling that A.I. could disrupt human rule of law is already happening with facial recognition, widespread data collection and surveillance capitalism proper.

What do you guys think?

Even without AGI, A.I. will invent things beyond the understanding of people. So where will it fall in courts of rule of law? For example, if AIs become more knowledgeable and skilled than all people in a field, it is unclear how a human patent examiner could assess whether an AI’s invention was obvious.

An AI system built to review all information published about an area of technology before it invents would possess a much larger body of knowledge than any human could. We are close to a point where A.I. is capable of innovation faster than humans are prepared or capable of managing. This is not just a bottleneck in patent law adapting to the new reality, but a symptom of AiSupremacy whereby the?A.I. arms race?could create significant winners and losers.

If you enjoy articles about A.I. at the intersection of breaking news join AiSupremacy?here. I cannot continue to write without community support. (follow the link below). Join 72 other paying subscribers.

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