Posts Tagged: "artificial intelligence"

It is safe to say that Artificial intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are hot topics and, as with any rapidly growing technological area on the industry side, there is also a rapidly growing number of patent applications being filed.In view of this, the European Patent Office (EPO) issued new guidance for examination for AI and ML patent applications in November 2018. Meanwhile, in January 2019, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) also issued revised guidance directed to what constitutes patent eligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. §101. Although the USPTO’s revised guidance is more generally directed to software applications, at least one of the accompanying hypothetical examples (Example 39) is directed to the AI and ML space. Therefore, while there may be lingering concerns that AI and ML inventions will face extra scrutiny toward patentability due to their software-centric nature, the extra attention that the EPO and USPTO are paying toward AI and ML will likely help swing the pendulum of patentable subject matter toward a place that is in harmony with the current state of technology. The below analysis reviews the recent developments by the EPO and the USPTO to provide specific guidance on the topic of AI and ML.

Deepfake technology has made headlines recently for its use in creating fake portrayals of celebrities, but the long term implications could be much more sinister than phony renderings of Scarlett Johansson appearing in porn videos or President Barack Obama calling Trump a profanity. While the California bill is chiefly aimed at criminalizing this particular type of technological deception, it has implications for IP in that it reaches conduct that may not be easily addressed by the enforcement of existing IP law.

This week on Capitol Hill, the House IP Subcommittee convenes its first hearing of the 116th Congress to discuss a recent report from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on female inventors, and various other House subcommittees will convene hearings to discuss 2020 budget requests for the National Science Foundation, NASA and the Department of Defense. In the Senate, there are hearings scheduled to look at government oversight of electronic health records as well as cybersecurity issues related to small businesses. In the middle of the week, the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation will host events that will explore proactive strikes by companies against cyber attackers, as well as how immigration issues are affecting STEM fields. The week closes out with a Brookings Institution event looking at consumer data privacy issues and policy reactions from around the world.

This week on Capitol Hill, both houses of Congress are abuzz with a full schedule of hearings related to science, technology and innovation topics. In the House of Representatives, various committees explore a proposed net neutrality bill, innovation in the aviation industry, and ways to improve competition in the pharmaceutical industry—a hot topic of debate in recent weeks. Both the House and the Senate will hold hearings on the future of America’s space program. The Senate will also consider consumer data privacy regulations, rural broadband investments, and military applications of artificial intelligence. On Tuesday, a pair of events at the Brookings Institution will look at the impact of technological advances on public policy, as well as the artificial intelligence race between the U.S. and China.

The Japan Patent Office recently added ten new case examples pertinent to artificial intelligence-related technology to Annex A of its Japanese Patent Examination Handbook. The examples are meant to facilitate understanding of the description requirements and the inventive step requirement in Japan as applied to AI-related inventions. In doing so, they provide a useful preview for how other patent offices might begin treating AI-related inventions. The examples are also very useful for any practitioner with clients in the AI space who intend to file in Japan.

This week on Capitol Hill, the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives has planned a number of hearings on climate change and antitrust matters, especially where the T-Mobile/Sprint merger is concerned. In the Senate, cybersecurity takes center stage at the Senate Homeland Security and Energy Committees. Elsewhere in Washington, D.C., the Brookings Institution got the week started early with a look at the impacts of artificial intelligence on urban life; Inventing America hosts a half-day event looking at current issues in the U.S. patent system; and the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation examines the future of autonomous vehicles in the freight industry.

This week on Capitol Hill, the House of Representatives will host almost every hearing that will relate to technology and innovation, including three hearings originally scheduled for last week but moved due to the national day of mourning for former President George H. W. Bush. Hearings in the House will focus on topics including advanced fuels for next generation engines, efforts to speed the development of innovative medical treatments, legislation for freeing up broadband Internet spectrum for public use and government IT acquisition processes. Over in the Senate, there will be a hearing in the middle of the week on Chinese espionage that will explore how entities in that country have been involved in cyberattacks and Internet piracy against American targets.

This week on Capitol Hill, the Senate appropriations Committee will hold a hearing on efforts leading to advanced nuclear reactor technology while the Senate rules committee will consider a bill that would amend the nomination process and the required qualifications for the Register of Copyrights. Over in the House of Representatives, hearings on artificial intelligence applications for national defense, Google’s data collection practices and a recently passed bill for bridging the digital divide will also take place this week.

Artificial intelligence technologies are transforming industries and improving human productivity and health. Unfortunately, the stark reality appears to be that artificial intelligence technologies are likely to be more heavily scrutinized under 35 U.S.C. § 101 and less likely to be allowed… The Court in Electric Power Group made note that: “we have treated analyzing information by steps people go through in their minds, or by mathematical algorithms, without more, as essentially mental processes within the abstract-idea category”.  The authors propose that this sentence of the decision is of utmost importance in the context of patenting A.I. technology.

The European Patent Office Guidelines 2018 were recently published on the European Patent Office (EPO) website. All substantial changes in the new Guidelines relate mainly to sections discussing the First Hurdle, the EPO equivalent to patent eligibility. Although the First Hurdle can be overcome simply by adding the presence of a computer, the number, quality of and relationship between technical features are essential in dealing with the Second Hurdle, or inventive step. A thorough analysis of whether each claimed feature is technical, or not, is essential to claim drafting and prosecution of a computer-implemented invention at the European Patent Office and many also believe may help assessing eligibility and patentability before the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Thus, U.S. patent practitioners working with Computer-implemented inventions (CII) would do well to review the new EPO 2018 Guidelines.

Certain innovations—known as enabling technologies—provide the foundation for progress across a range of industries. Enabling technologies include mobile wireless, the laser, CT scanners, the microprocessor, artificial intelligence, and freight containerization. Such technologies drive wealth creation throughout the economy. However, the difficulties associated with monetizing this type of IP, which I explore in this article, mean that private enterprise tends to underinvest in new enabling technologies. Public policy needs to be more supportive, and firms need to be willing to support more blue-sky projects. As a nation, we are harvesting the fruits of old enabling technologies without investing sufficiently in new ones. We are eating our seed corn.

On the morning of Tuesday, June 26th, both the House Subcommittee on Research and Technology and the House Subcommittee on Energy held a hearing titled Artificial Intelligence – With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility. The day’s discussion centered on issues surrounding the nascent technological field of artificial intelligence (AI), including both the potential negative and positive impacts that improved AI technologies could pose to the U.S. workforce and society in general… The specter of increased Chinese investment into AI tech development was also discussed during the day’s hearing. During his opening remarks, Congressman Randy Weber (R-TX), chair of the House Energy Subcommittee, spoke to the concerns over increased tech investment by China into AI programs and how that threatens U.S. dominance in the field.

The idea that all software is obvious is a theoretical argument that doesn’t just border on the scattological, it wades right into the sewer. Consider artificial intelligence. If AI, which requires the use of software algorithms, is supposed to augment human intelligence and provide us with answers to questions we can’t figure out without the use of AI, how is that at all obvious? What about IBM’s Watson cognitive computing platform? … When the highest court in the land incorporates such backward-minded patterns of thought which allows them to say that “At its most basic, a computer is just a calculator capable of performing mental steps faster than a human could,” the U.S. patent system must be a relative paradise to Duda and other anti-patent Luddites who believe that software inventions cannot and should not be patentable at all.

A high ranking Chinese official has announced that the Chinese government rejected a request from the United States to end its subsidization of industries identified by the Made in China 2025 initiative. These key industry sectors are areas where technological development is very important and as such, they’ve been at the center of allegations over the forced transfer of patented technologies to Chinese domestic firms as well as outright theft of trade secrets. The Chinese government has responded to concerns over the Made in China initiative with one senior economic official defending the program as open to foreign and private companies according to a report by Hong Kong’s English daily The Standard.

The patent boom China has been experiencing is easy to explain. China as a country has been unwavering in its support for domestic patent production in recent years. Indeed, the Chinese government has been actively encouraging not only increased innovation that makes it more likely there will be patentable innovations, but that government has been aggressively incentivizing increased patent filings. Incentives include subsidizing patent filing fees, providing rewards for patent filings, and tax credits that are tied to patent output. In many ways, China’s innovation economy is a near photo-negative of the current iteration of the U.S. patent system.