Patenting Artificial Intelligence

As patent attorneys we are trained to tease out the thoughts of a human inventor in tackling a problem. However, inventions involving artificial intelligence (AI) can present us with the challenge of an inventor explaining that with sufficient input data, the “black box” number-crunching outputs a neat solution to the problem posed. We are not yet at a point at which AI-powered machines and software have become untethered from the supervision of human beings. However, if you use Apple’s Siri, you are benefiting from AI-based natural language processing. Google’s DeepMind is applying AI to process raw data from the environment to emulate human learning, and AI-driven software can predict epileptic seizures with incredible accuracy. This webinar explores invention-spotting strategies for AI innovations. The aftermath of the US Supreme Court’s Alice decision can lead to some AI innovations being categorised as patent-ineligible “abstract ideas”. However, the European Patent Office (EPO) has a stable and long-established body of case law in the assessment of computer-implemented inventions via the problem-solution approach. We believe that the European approach can be helpful in navigating patent eligibility arguments in the US. We shall review useful practical examples from EPO case law of attempts to protect AI inventions.