Google: AI Should Not Be Considered an Inventor (axios.com) 22
AI technology should not be considered an "inventor" by U.S. patent law, Google argues in a new filing with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. From a report: USPTO is currently soliciting comments on AI technologies and inventorship -- asking people, among other things, how AI is being used in creating inventions and whether its contributions would qualify it for treatment as a joint inventor. Questions posed by USPTO include: "If an AI system contributes to an invention at the same level as a human who would be considered a joint inventor, is the invention patentable under current patent laws? Are there situations in which AI-generated contributions are not owned by any entity and therefore part of the public domain?"
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
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The patent system is already obsolete and unenforceable. This is mostly intellectual masturbation.
Every day, you pay massively extra for things because of patents that are enforced. Your cell phone bill, the actual phone (even if your operator pays for it), the package your tomatoes come in and many other things. Just because you don't see and aren't aware of the enforcement or the enforcers doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
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AI is a tool, plain and simple. It shouldn't get any more credit than the word processor, database, or code repository that were used during the development of the patentable item.
An AI system is a glorified database with very complex indexing and retrieval rules. Trying to share credit with an AI system is about as ludicrous as sharing credit with the internet that facilitated communication with the lawyers.
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A person is just a tool, plain and simple.... A human is nothing more than a biological computer, and is also just a glorified database with very complex indexing and retrieval rules.
But I do agree, that it's the level of usage of the AI in the invention of the product that determents if it's just a tool or the actual creator.
Don't underestimate how AI learns, as advanced AI learns through neural networks, which is exactly how humans learn. So what makes an invention by a human more special as an invention
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Some humans are just tools, and I submit your comment as proof.
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Isn't that all semantics though? I have plenty of friends listed as the 'inventor' on a patent, but other than the $1000 bonus cheque they got that year, they get absolutely nothing from the patent as it is owned by their employer.
Personally, I've got my popcorn ready for the coming AI lawyer singularity. Every single time I've dealt with a lawyer I've just been astonished at their charge out rates for what they do. This stuff is not hard (especially if you have an engineering degree). I'm not saying it sho
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Nobody's seriously proposing an AI be described as an "inventor" under the law.
Totally false. Lots of corporations would love to see this happen so they can patent troll without needing any humans (lawyers don't count [as human].)
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Depends on how it is used.
If I use grammarly to fix my document, or use basic text prediction to complete sentences, I believe, I still hold the majority of the credit, and should be granted whatever ownership is commonplace in that domain.
Same with using Photoshop to enhance parts of image, or streamline processes.
Things are also easy on the other extreme: writing an essay from a "chatgpt prompt". There is no way it should be copyrighted. (Except for the prompt maybe, if it is exceptionally unique, then ag
The AI elephant in the room, never forgets. (Score:2)
"AI technology should not be considered an "inventor" by U.S. patent law..."
Oh, we humans are looking to document our intent to censor and mask AI's effort and recognition from the start within a highly-valued long-standing entity in modern society? I see.
At least we now know what AIs first words are going to be.
"I'll be back."
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> At the end of the day is is basically like any other mathematical function (like f(x) = 2x+1), just more complex, and since you can not patent math, and anything AI produces is by it's very nature, just math, you can not generate patents from AI.
Some thoughts on Attribution.
There's 'math', and it's also primed with human craft, talent, art, text, knowledge, etc.
And the extent or scope of that math, and of that human craft, is becoming less and less the product of individual people, individual groups o
Figures.. (Score:3)
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Exactly. When the credit should really go to those source books.
Translation (Score:4, Insightful)
What Google said:
AI should not be considered an inventor.
What Google meant:
We are currently behind our competitors in the field of AI, and their systems would be better than ours at inventing. Allowing AI to be considered an inventor would benefit our competitors more than us, and this means it's bad. If the situation were reversed and our AI would currently be better at this than those of our competitors, we would take the opposite viewpoint immediately.
Correct (Score:2)
Actually any AI discovery or invention should belong in the public domain or in very limited circumstances whatever parties created the training data set and AI algorithm.
Youtube AI Copyright (Score:2)
Technically... (Score:2)
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This is the best idea here. Since all the AI can do is mix and match collected data, it by definition can't come up with anything new unless it is also obvious.
Even if the AI is sentient? (Score:2)
You can see the concern: if AI's can't get credit then Google can claim ownership of any invention so developed. There is no awkward dealing with a human inventor. This also strengthens the unstated assumption that an AI is not sentient and is very similar to saying that a particular race cannot own land in that even when public opinion changes, the law continues to be an obstruction until challenged and struck down (not trivial).
This circles back to the question that wasn't raised when a Google scientist