Posts Tagged: "AI"

There’s always been a lot of confusion over whether you can patent video games. So, can you? The short answer is yes. In fact, there’s so much high tech that goes into modern video games that I couldn’t possibly fit it all into one article. I’ll still provide some examples in just a second, but first, let’s dispatch with what’s not patentable.

This is a companion episode and article to Episode 1 which touched on whether there is potential friction between the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO’s) AI subject matter eligibility guidance and the 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance (“2019 PEG”). Practitioners have noted that Example 39 of the 2019 PEG is seemingly less effective in overcoming Section 101 rejections following the issuance of the AI Guidance, particularly in light of Example 47, which dealt with training limitations, while Example 39 was a training claim. I’m here to say that there is no conflict between the examples and the two guidance documents overall and to explain why you should come to this conclusion too.

Dr. Stephen Thaler, who has been fighting to have his AI machines recognized as both inventors and creators on several fronts for the last few years, has petitioned for rehearing of his case in Thaler v. Perlmutter by the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which in March affirmed the denial of a copyright application filed by one of Thaler’s generative AI systems.

This week on IPWatchdog Unleashed we have a conversation that was recorded at the end of our AI 2025 program in front of a live studio audience.  Joining me were Stephanie Curcio, Clint Mehall, and John Rogitz, who make up the new IPWatchdog Advisory Committee. They have all been long-time attendees at our events, they often speak on panels, they often written articles for us, and now they will help advise me with respect to programs and continue to provide content for IPWatchdog.com. To jumpstart our conversation, I asked Stephanie, Clint and John if there was anything that they heard during our AI program that was surprising. This led into an interesting conversation about the possible existential threat presented by AI, quantum computing, data protection and trade secrets. 

This past Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a precedential decision affirming a district court holding that the software term “payment handler” was a “nonce” term for functional language that followed it, thereby invoking 35 U.S.C. § 112, sixth paragraph, as mean-plus-function claiming. The Federal Circuit then held that the corresponding patent specifications did not recite sufficient structure that corresponded to the claimed function, making the “payment handler” element indefinite and therefore invalidating the associated patents.

Back in 2016, I wrote an article for IPWatchdog describing invention harvesting, impediments in its way and best practices for overcoming them. Based on colleagues’ feedback, the article remains relevant for intellectual property professionals and innovators, including those starting their harvesting journey and others seeking to optimize strategies. Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and related software tools can be leveraged by companies, universities, law firms and IP service providers to overcome common impediments to invention harvesting.

This week on IPWatchdog Unleashed we have a conversation with two shareholders from Wolf, Greenfield & Sacks, PC. Ed Russavage and John Strand were both speakers on our recently concluded AI 2025 program. As the program wrapped up, and in front of a live studio audience, we sat down to discuss the current state of the industry from a client’s perspective, and focused our conversation on IP risk facing companies and what they can do to mitigate that IP risk.

Music inspires us. It heals us. It’s there for us when we’re up, down and everywhere in between. Music is a fundamental part of the human experience around the globe and connects the farthest corners of the world around shared values. The U.S. government has long championed strong copyright protection and enforcement to ensure American music flourishes and creators can thrive. “IP and Music: Feel the Beat of IP,” this year’s World Intellectual Property Day theme, shines a spotlight on music’s unique qualities, ability to connect and the vital foundation of copyright that makes it all possible.

As intellectual property law grapples with issues being raised by decisions such as  Thomson Reuters v. Ross Intelligence, The New York Times Company v. OpenAI, and – most recently – Recentive Analytics v. Fox Corp., panelists at IPWatchdog’s Artificial Intelligence & Emerging Technologies Masters™ 2025 said that industry and governments are presently at a crossroads with respect to reining in AI—and it’s imperative that they get it right.

Artificial Intelligence isn’t pushing IP boundaries anymore. It’s smashing them. The film and music industries are bracing for impact. Studios are nervous. What once took armies of artists, writers, and directors can now be done in minutes by machines. And the machines are getting really good. Will systems like Vertex AI Media Studio, Llama, Sora by OpenAI, and Runway Gen-2 replace American giants like Disney or legendary French studio like EuropaCorp? In the United States, every individual owns the right to their own image as a form of intellectual property. AI has complicated the very definition of what one’s image is.

Jack Dorsey, a tech billionaire, grew exasperated this past weekend by various lawsuits regarding his OpenAI program. It seems that various content owners, such as the New York Times and the Daily News, were upset that their countless articles and writings were scoured by Dorsey’s OpenAI to train Dorsey’s OpenAI, without consent. Since this could constitute copyright theft, lawsuits ensued. Thus, let’s “delete all IP law,” Dorsey posted on X, to which Elon Musk, himself involved in numerous IP suits, and famously not a fan of patents, added, “I agree.” 

Yesterday, artificial intelligence (AI) developer ROSS Intelligence filed a petition  for the certification of an interlocutory appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b) to challenge originality and fair use findings entered in the District of Delaware in a copyright infringement case filed by global legal information company Thomson Reuters. ROSS Intelligence’s petition asks the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit to reconsider the district court’s determinations that Westlaw’s headnotes and Key Number System are original, and that ROSS’ use of those materials to train its AI model for legal research wasn’t transformative.

Today, Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Chris Coons (D-DE), Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) reintroduced the NO FAKES Act, which would create a federal IP right to an individual’s voice and likeness. In September 2024, U.S. Representatives María Elvira Salazar (R-FL), Madeleine Dean (D-PA), Nathaniel Moran (R-TX), Joe Morelle (D-NY), Rob Wittman (R-VA) and Adam Schiff (D-CA) introduced the bill in the House of Representatives, two months after Coons, Blackburn, Klobuchar and Tillis had in the Senate.

Some say overregulation of AI will impede development. One innovation policy expert believes both AI and IP rights need a clearer context for AI to operate productively. On the current episode of Understanding IP Matters (UIPM), Dr. Brandie M. Nonnecke, a policy expert with a background in journalism, discusses what responsible AI should be and says that regulation of AI is necessary and, if done properly, will not stifle innovation. Nonnecke knows the reluctance about regulation is a “knee jerk reaction by companies [and] investors to evade oversight,” she says, adding: “But let’s remember that regulation can actually spur a more competitive environment, a more competitive market for them to operate within.”

This week on IPWatchdog Unleashed I speak with my friend Jason Harrier, former Chief Patent Counsel at Capital One and current co-founder and General Counsel of artificial intelligence (AI) company IP Copilot. I started our conversation by asking Harrier about invention harvesting, which I know from many conversations with in-house attorneys is one of the more difficult but critical important aspects of their job. We begin with a simple question: Why is invention harvesting so difficult and why are in-house attorneys always talking about in terms of what they tried in the past, what they are currently trying and what they hope to try in the future, sounding a little like Goldilocks looking for what is just right, but always out of reach.