In the 16 years from 2002 to 2018, annual AI patent applications increased by more than 100%, rising from 30,000 to more than 60,000 annually (1):
Top 10 U.S. patent owners-at-grant, 1976-2018 (1):
The Story of AI in Patents (2)
Artificial intelligence is a new digital frontier that will have a profound impact on the world, transforming the way we live and work. This new report aims to shed light on the trends in innovation in AI since the field first developed in the 1950s-WIPO Director Francis Gurry (2)
Main assignees of AI-medical-related patents (3)
Among the top 25 assignees, Roche, YouHealth, Cireca Theranostics, and Prometheus Lab are the only four companies that possess co-assigned patents with other organizations. The low AI patent cooperation rate may be attributed to knowledge leakage risks accompanied by collaboration (1)
Temporal evolution of patent applications for the top 25 assignees in AI medical field (3)
Distribution of 13,567 AI technology patents (4)
Top 30 AI patent assignees (4)
AI in pharma (5)
Future Patents questions (6)
- What role can/does the patent system play in encouraging the development and use of?AI?technologies?
- Can current?AI?systems devise inventions? Particularly:
- (a) to what extent is?AI?a tool for human inventors to use?
- (b) could the?AI?developer, the user of the?AI, or the person who constructs the datasets on which?AI?is trained, claim inventorship?
- (c) are there situations when a human inventor cannot be identified?
- Should patent law allow?AI?to be identified as the sole or joint inventor?
- If?AI?cannot be credited as inventor, will this discourage future inventions being protected by patents? Would this impact on innovation developed using?AI? Would there be an impact if inventions were kept confidential rather than made public through the patent system?
- Is there a moral case for recognising?AI?as an inventor in a patent?
- If?AI?was named as sole or joint inventor of a patented invention, who or what should be entitled to own the patent?
- Does current law or practice cause problems for the grant of patents for?AI?inventions in the UK?
- Could there be patentability issues in the future as?AI?technology develops?
- How difficult do the list of excluded categories in UK law make it to secure patent protection for?AI?inventions? Where should be the line be drawn here to best stimulate innovation?
- Do restrictions on the availability of patent rights cause problems for ethical oversight of?AI?inventions?
- Does the requirement for a patent to provide sufficient detail to allow a skilled person to perform an invention pose problems for?AI?inventions?
- In the future could there be reasons for the law to provide sufficient detail of an?AI?invention for societal reasons that go beyond the current purposes of patent law?
- Does or will?AI?challenge the level of inventive step required to obtain a patent? If yes, can this challenge be accommodated by current patent law?
- Should we extend the concept of “the person skilled in the art” to “the machine trained in the art”?
- Who is liable when?AI?infringes a patent, particularly when this action could not have been predicted by a human?
- Could there be problems proving patent infringement by?AI? If yes, can you estimate the size and the impacts of the problem?
Future Copyright questions (5)
- Do you agree with the above description of how?AI?may use copyright works and databases, when infringement takes place and which exceptions apply? Are there other technical and legal aspects that need to be considered?
- Is there a need for greater clarity about who is liable when an?AI?infringes copyright?
- Is there a need to clarify existing exceptions, to create new ones, or to promote licensing, in order to support the use of copyright works by?AI?systems? Please provide any evidence to justify this.
- Is there a need to provide additional protection for copyright or database owners whose works are used by?AI?systems? Please provide any evidence to justify this.
- Should content generated by artificial intelligence be eligible for protection by copyright or related rights?
- If so, what form should this protection take, who should benefit from it, and how long should it last?
- Do other issues need to be considered in relation to content produced by?AI?systems?
- Does copyright provide adequate protection for software which implements artificial intelligence?
- Does copyright or copyright licensing create any unreasonable obstacles to the use of?AI?software?
Future Designs questions (5)
- Do you agree with the analysis above which concludes that it is not possible for?AI?to be the author or owner of a UK or Community design?
- Are there, or could there be, any tensions with the current legislation when seeking to register a design or be recognised as the owner of an?AI-created design? Who would be the legal entity applying for the rights?
- Who should be recognised as the author of a design created by?AI?where the system has been bought from a supplier, and the buyer has provided input or data to the system? Does the wording of legislation need to be changed?
- Do you consider that legislation should be changed to allow?AI?systems to be recognised as the author of a registered design or designer of an unregistered design?
- If so, how should we assess when?AI?stops being a tool programmed by a human and becomes an intelligent entity capable of producing its own?IP? What proof or evidence would be required?
- Unlike UK domestic legislation, the?CDR?has no provisions relating specifically to computer-generated designs. Does this result in legal uncertainty in relation to authorship and ownership of computer-generated designs? Would the same apply to?AI-generated designs?
- Are there any other issues in relation to the?CDR?which we should consider in relation to?AI?
- Can the actions of?AI?infringe a registered or unregistered design? Can?AI?do the acts set out in law?
- When considering infringement are there, or could there be, any difficulties applying existing legal concepts in the registered designs framework to?AI?technology? Does?AI?affect the use of the “informed user” in measuring overall impression?
- If?AI?can infringe a registered design, who should be liable for the infringement? Should it be the owner, the programmer, the coder, the trainer, the operator, the provider of training data, or some other party?
Future Trade marks questions (5)
- If?AI?technology becomes a primary purchaser of products, what impact could this have on trade mark law?
- Are there or could there be any difficulties with applying the existing legal concepts in trade mark law to?AI?technology?
- Does?AI?affect the concept of the “average consumer” in measuring likelihood of confusion?
- What is the impact of?AI?on the drafting of section 10? Can?AI?“use in the course of business” a sign which may be confusingly similar or identical to a trade mark?
- Can the actions of?AI?infringe a trade mark?
- If?AI?can cause trade mark infringement, does this shift who could be liable? Should it be the owner, the operator, the programmer, the trainer, the provider of training data, or some other party?
Future Trade secrets questions (5)
- Is trade secret protection important for the?AI?sector? Does the nature of?AI?technologies and business influence your answer?
- Does?AI?impact UK trade secret law? Does UK trade secret law give adequate protection to aspects of?AI?technology where no other intellectual property rights are available?
- What are the advantages and disadvantages of using trade secrets in the?AI?sector? Could information that is not shared inhibit?AI?development?
- Do trade secrets cause problems for the ethical oversight of?AI?inventions?
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Further readings
