AI: ARTIFICIAL INVENTOR OR THE REAL DEAL?
The utilization of Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) in the process of innovation has been occurring for decades. However, with the increased sophistication of AI, it is becoming gradually more difficult to discern between the point in which AI is simply being employed as a tool, contributing to human innovation, from the
point in which AI is actually being inherently innovative. While autonomous AI systems resemble what is predicted as Artificial General Intelligence (“AGI”) in the distant future, it is becoming progressively evident that AGI could be on the near horizon. In the instance of DABUS, an artificial intelligence device listed as the sole inventor of multiple patent applications, AI is already capable of independently generating inventions and internally appreciating its creations as novel and useful. With current patent law requiring that an inventor be a natural person, patents for AI-generated inventions are at a stand-still. Without adequate patent protection for AI-generated inventions, the United States Patent and Trademark Office has inadvertently proscribed two avenues for individuals to intelligently pick their poison. Either individuals will be forced to fraudulently disclose themselves as the inventor instead of indicating the true inventor, their AI system, or keep useful innovation as a trade secret—both of which contradict the fundamental underpinnings of the Intellectual Property Clause of the Constitution. Thus, granting patent protection on novel, AI-generated inventions is perhaps the best solution to encourage creativity and progress science.
Author: Anna Carnochan Comer
Volume 22, Issue 3