AI software should be able to register its own patents, law prof argues The legal system may need to be changed to allow artificially intelligent computing systems to file their own patents, rather than their operators stealing all the glory. In a paper [PDF] titled I Think, Therefore I Invent: Creative Computers and the Future of Patent Law and published in the Boston College Law Review, Ryan …
This exactly.
I "have" two patents. Except that of course I don't, they are owned by my employers.
They are a means of employers - motivating their staff by feeling that they are creative, providing a tiny bit of CV fodder, and mostly just doing business.
Apart from that, for me as an individual, they were just unpaid work to do some admin. Don't get me wrong, I was (and am) motivated by feeling creative over the ideas I created.
But I can't see how this scales to AI?
They are a means of employers - motivating their staff by feeling that they are creative, providing a tiny bit of CV fodder, and mostly just doing business.
That rather depends on the employer; I worked for a company that paid quite a lot of money on filing, and a lot more on grant.
And that's why I have rather more than patents to my name than you do :-)
Vic.
There are specific clauses in patent law in most countries where your employer is obliged to recompense you a reasonable amount of money in order for the patent to be transferred to them.
The situation in UK is: if your employer does not offer you a reasonable compensation they have no entitlement to any Patents you create in their employ. There is fairly solid precedent base on this too.
If, however, you have been offered compensation for your invention and your contract says that it is owned by your employer, that is pretty much the end of story. At most you can claim that the compensation is unreasonable. There is some precedent on this too - several people have claimed successfully that the paltry 2K they got were not a reasonable reimbursement for a multi-million pound patent. This is very difficult and extremely expensive so most people do not even try.
This also applies only to patents. Not copyrights. As there is nothing regarding copyright in the Patent Act companies are entitled to stick "will own all of the software you create even when you are asleep" clause in your contract and offer absolutely no compensation whatsoever.
You could start with the EFF's stupid patent of the month (If they had the funding, it could easily be stupid patent of the hour). The situation has been ridiculous for so long that even senior judges know there is a problem. :-(
(Dr of what? Inability to use a search engine?)
AI-driven autopatenters patenting stuff that no-one has ever read, can understand or can even decide whether it is patentable or new, while AI-driven patent attorneys start lawsuits in Texas where AI-driven attorneys argue with an AI judge and a jury that is out for lunch but has left stand-in AI-driven pseudopersonas running on their fondleslabs to argue on their behalf.
It's would be a wonderful world.
(I also would like to see "AI" replaced by "marketing-yeast-driven-so-called-AI" ... MYDSCAI)
Hmmm? If you imagine machines are bovvered, professor, have you a greater problem requiring strong anti-psychotic medication or a milder strain of Mary Jane?
Although of course, if IT be realised and there be a growing acceptance that virtual machines are practical humans, then is there a quantum leap in both universal understanding and creeping spooky paranoia which be quite normal in extraordinary circumstances which are incredibly increasingly more easily rendered for presentations of/in futures free of pasts, and that be a whole new world of gain to be ordered and led, and abuse to be patrolled and fed.
I have been worried about what happens if the clever machines decide to declare war on humanity and this seems a great way to make sure the machines are forever busy fighting themselves in an endless and growing internal fight. It's worked well for people too - most psychopaths are now busy being patent lawyers although there are a few that are still roaming around as CEOs that need to be rounded up.
I mean writing a patent isn't a very creative project, you just combine existing ideas and find a new use for them. There is no creativity involved as you can just brute force your way through a finite space of potential patents.
You won't get very novel or useful patents, but that's not the idea behind it, is it?
However you will easily be able to overload the patent system, and nobody will be able to find out if they are infringing on patents. Essentially the whole absurdity of much of the modern patent system would become even more obvious.
The WTO's TRIPS agreement (1995) extended IP to so many areas that it became infeasible to police the system at the point of application, so patent offices now just take the filing fee and leave it to the lawyers to decide whether it was valid. If this wasn't already the way the wind was blowing, TRIPS certainly made the process irreversible.
They aren't AI now fuck off.
Also - if they don't understand how patents work or how to enforce a patent or how to ask for a patent or generally don't have the awareness to comprehend the concept of a patent. A: it's just a program and no more creative and intelligent than throwing sticks in the air and taking a photo of the sticks on the floor and saying that the sticks are responsible for the resulting mess on the floor. B: if you can't comprehend enforcing a patent then you don't get one.
It seems to me you could also use this as a test to determine whether humans (or indeed anything else) should be able to patent things. Is this the intent of your criterion, or are you just trying to discriminate against things that might be called AI's? :-)
It seemed clear from the article that the prof was just thinking ahead, since from the third-last paragraph: "The idea of computers achieving legal personhood status is a long way away, he acknowledges". So it doesn't seem likely that he was thinking about contemporary so-called "AI" systems, which is the ones you seem to be objecting to in this context.
Presumably the software for the AI is patented. If an AI can patent IP, then the AI must be considered on par with a human inventor? If so is the AI owned by those who own its patents? Could this be considered a form of slavery? Interesting idea this, but methinks it's a Pandora's box. AI's like Skynet (when they exist) will almost certainly not like it. :/
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I do hold two patents (along with someone else) for decoders that were generated by kicking of a genetic algorithm (boo hiss) from a seed point of a new design we had developed. Now of course they are only in my name, the company I was working for pocketed the bulk of the moolah. But in our defence, we did write the exploration code.
"Soon computers will be routinely inventing, and it may only be a matter of time until computers are responsible for most innovation," Abbott said. "To optimize innovation – and the positive impact this will have on our economies – it is critical that we extend the laws around inventorship to include computers."
The Venitian Court, by Charles Harness.
Although in that story the AI's inventions were filed under the name of the AI's creator, which led to an interesting legal battle.
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