=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2844/ethics10
|storemode=property
|title=A Critical Analysis on the Denial of Inventorship Rights to AI and Creative Computers
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2844/ethics10.pdf
|volume=Vol-2844
|authors=Sergios Papastergiou
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/setn/Papastergiou20
}}
==A Critical Analysis on the Denial of Inventorship Rights to AI and Creative Computers==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2844/ethics10.pdf
A Critical Analysis on the Denial of Inventorship Rights to AI
and Creative Computers
Sergios Papastergiou FirstName Surname
FirstName Surname† LegalTech LLM Department Name
Department Name Swansea University Institution/University Name
Institution/University Name Wales City State Country
City State Country serg.papastergiou@gmail.com email@email.com
email@email.com
ABSTRACT In light of these developments, this paper will discuss the subject
of AI generated innovations and the assignment of inventors in
As the title suggests, in this paper the author examines, through such cases. In the first section the paper will address the meaning
the analysis of the DABUS applications, the possibility, legality
of AI and their inventive qualities. Following that, in the next
and usefulness of identifying creative computers as inventors for
patentable innovations imagined and developed by these systems section, the current patent legislation will be discussed and will be
with insignificant or no human intervention. The author stands applied in the situation in hand. To better comprehend the patent
by the view that identifying humans as inventors in cases where system and successfully tackle the issue of computer innovations,
they had little or no contribution, distorts the current patent the third section will explore the philosophical justifications for
system by rating protection to non-inventors. On the other hand, patent law. After gathering all this information, we are ready to
grating inventorship to non-human actors serves no visible apply our conclusions to the issue before us. The last two sections
purpose. Maybe, the current patent system is in need of reshaping, of the paper provide the writer's point of view over the
as to make room and regulations to protect such inventions, patentability of computer inventions and the possibility of naming
which, day by day, are becoming more and more popular. AI as inventors as well as the allocation of ownership rights in the
case of an affirmative answer to the challenge of inventorship.
CCS CONCEPTS
• Applied computing
~Law, social and behavioral sciences 2. The creativity of Artificial Intelligence
~Law
There have been many attempts to define Artificial Intelligence as
KEYWORDS well as many types of AI systems with various functionalities and
AI, Patent, Inventorship, creative computers, DABUS capabilities8. In the most widely accepted definition, AI can be
understood as the technology that performs such a task, which if
done by a human, would require intelligence 9. However, not all
Artificial Intelligence systems are the same. A core distinction in
1. Introduction Artificial Intelligence systems is that of weak and strong AI. The
former one is designed to perform a specific, narrow ask and
Artificial Intelligence is making an increasing appearance in cannot deviate from that goal to be used in a wider field 10. An
businesses and industries and it is becoming a powerful tool of example of weak AI is IBM's Deep Blue that won versus Gary
innovation1. Inventing computers are nowadays being used Kasparov in a game of chess in 199711. The latter one, on the other
regularly to create new technologies in various fields2, ranging hand, is designed to achieve a result much closer to a human brain
from writing articles3 and producing food recipes4 to composing by developing more generalized "mental" capabilities, such as
music and inventing new jet engines with enhanced problem solving and reasoning12. An example of this kind of AI
performance5. The last few years academics and experts have would be, from IBM again, Watson13, a reasoning machine with
started talking about the possibility of a designation of an access to vast amounts of data, which is able to outperform
innovative computer as an inventor in patent applications. The humans in a wide variety of fields, from winning in the game
World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has called out "Jeopardy!" against former winners14 to practically becoming a
to the word for comments6 on the situation and the challenges chef15, generating new recipes, some of which could potentially
that arise. On the other hand, the European Patent Office (EPO) be patentable, if they were made by humans.
has recently issued a decision upon the DABUS application
(2018)7, in which Stephen Thaler, the applicant, was the first one Artificial Intelligence is rapidly evolving and increasingly more
to ever appoint a computer, DABUS, as the inventor of the strong AI systems are developed by big private sector firms such
patentable material. as Google, Amazon, and IBM, which invest huge amounts of
WAIEL2020, September 3, 2020, Athens, Greece
Copyright © 2020 for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative
Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
money in the creation of AI systems, able to perform AI, but that is not a part that can be considered as
independently with innovative and unpredictable outcomes. "conceptualization" in the sense of patent law26. To allow such
Certain academics recognize in these systems characteristics like persons to be recognized as inventors for the AI-generated
creativity, autonomy, "free choice" (although goal oriented) as inventions, will not constitute unfair treatment to the AI, since it
well as others, which prove that the AI is indeed does not have any interest in being listed as an inventor, nor it
intelligent16.These machines are not programmed to follow will be further incentivized to continue inventing, but rather, it
specific, rigid rules, but rather operate in the more loose rule of will be unfair to the rest of human inventors that work really hard
goal-achievement. Some of them use neural networks, a technique and devote themselves and countless hours of their lives in the
that mimics the function of the human brain to create synapses attempt to discover patentable inventions27. In light of these, there
between various neurons when learning new information. The is an ongoing discussion about the challenges that AI inventors
harder you train, the stronger and more accurate your synapses pose to the patent regime and whether AI should or should not be
will be. Much like that, the computer is trained with large amounts considered as an inventor. Furthermore, if concluded that AI can
of data, ever optimizing its "understanding" of the data17. Another be named inventor in a patent, who should be the owner of the
very popular technology is that of genetic programming. Genetic invention? Currently AIs are not considered legal persons in any
algorithms mimic natural selection by breeding a certain jurisdiction and thus, cannot hold property of any kind, nor have
"population" of random value chromosomes and the ones that any rights or obligations.
perform closer to the initially defined goal get to reproduce.
Moreover, a function is embedded in the process that randomly
produces new untested chromosomes to secure the largest 3. Current Patent System
amount of variety possible in the research. In the end, the
population that is better suited to fulfill the initial requirements A patent is the exclusive right over a process or product that
becomes dominant and is the only one to reproduce. 18 provides a new way to perform a specific action to the user, or a
novel solution to a problem of technical nature, or in other words
These machines are already producing patentable inventions for an "invention"28. By holding such a right, one may exclude all
decades now, but the AI's participation in the inventive process is others from selling, making, and using the particular invention for
not being disclosed in the U.S. Patent Office due to law a period of twenty years creating an absolute monopoly over the
uncertainties concerning AI inventions. Examples of such patented invention29. This right is primarily the belonging of the
inventions are the 1994 "Creativity Machine", developed by inventor himself, as well as the right to be mentioned as an
Stephen Thaler, which was using a neural network to generate inventor and many others30. For something to be considered a
novel ideas19. After being exposed to some music, the program patentable invention, certain requirements have to be met, for in
was able to produce more than 11.000 new pieces in one most jurisdictions there is no specific definition of an invention.
weekend20. Dr Thaler succeeded in getting a patent for the The reason for the absence of a clear definition lies in the attempt
"Creativity Machine", but not only that, he got yet another patent of the regulator to encompass as wide a spectrum for patentable
on December 2221, “Neural Network Based Prototyping System inventions as possible31. The requirements for an invention to be
and Method", which was quote "...invented by Patent Number granted a patent are novelty, originality and industrial use 32. An
One"22. invention is novel in patent law, if it does not belong to the "State
of the art"33, meaning that it should not have been used or
A second example of a unknowingly grated patent for an disclosed, or known by any other means anywhere before.
invention artificially created is the "Invention machine" from John Originality refers to the non-obviousness of the invention, or else
Koza. The machine was able to generate new and innovative "inventive step". A test has been placed in order to examine that
content without the need of human intervention. A patent was parameter, that of the "person skilled in the art", which considers
granted for an "Apparatus for that an expert in the field (assuming that he indeed knows the
Improved General - Purpose PID and non-PID Controllers” on entirety of the state of the art) reviews the invention and decides
January 25, 200523. The significance of this case lies in the fact that whether the solution provided is obvious or not. Last but not least,
John Koza did not have any expert knowledge about existing the quality of industrial utility refers to the potential marketability
controllers or a database of such24, proving that he could have of the solution34.
never invented such a thing on his own. However, he was advised
not to disclose the machines involvement in the patent All these provisions, in addition to the normative reasoning
application25. behind the adoption of patent law that we are going to discuss
later (the utilitarian theory of Intellectual property rights)
The common factor in both examples and the many more that we showcase the orientation of patent law towards the invention and
did not mention but are making their appearance in the innovative the general benefit of society, rather than the inventors
industries, is that the AI is able to function and produce innovative themselves. There does not exist an expressed statute requirement
content without human intervention in the creative process. for the inventor to be a natural person35. However, presently most
Indeed, programmers and developers engineer the software and jurisdictions only permit natural persons to be identified as
trainers spend enormous amounts of time to feed the data to the inventors36.
That is to say that if someone stumbles upon anything that could
The U.S. constitution does not specifically defines what an be considered an invention, they have a claim of inventorship that
"inventor" is37. Nevertheless, there is a requirement for the is weaker only to the person that actually invented the solution 47.
inventor to be an "individual". Thus, corporations and legal This provision provides the supporters of human inventorship of
persons are excluded from being identified as such. An inventor AI generated inventions in that they are able to overcome the
is the individual who "invented or discovered the subject matter issue of conception by default rather than dealing with the essence
of the invention"38. Conception is the key idea in identifying the of the problem, which is the rightfulness of identifying as an
inventor. Conception can be construed as "the formation in the inventor a person with minimal participation in the inventive
mind of the inventor of a definite and permanent idea of the process. Moreover, a solution like this will result in the
complete and operative invention as it is thereafter to be applied inventorship being granted to the person least involved in the
in practice.”39. Considering these requirement and the way that inventive process; the person who owns he machine and uses it as
they are construed, it seems very unlikely that a person providing an end-product (since they will be the ones able to recognize first
goals and tasks that a computer then has to solve on its own and the patentability of the AI generated content)48.
produce possibly patentable results, should qualify as an inventor.
In his paper40, Ryan Abbott, describes the following analogy to
depict the actual involvement of the human "inventor" in the case 4. DABUS Applications
of independent artificially generated inventions; “Imagine Friend
A tells Friend B, who is an engineer, that A would like B to develop On the 17th of October 2018 two applications was filed to both the
an iPhone battery with twice the standard battery life and A gives Intellectual Property Office of the United Kingdom and the
B some publicly available battery schematics. If B then succeeds European Patent Office for the grant of a patent concerning a food
in developing such a battery, A would not qualify as an inventor container49 and "devices and methods for attracting enhanced
of the battery by virtue of having instructed B to create a result.”. attention"50 without an indication of the inventor. After request,
the applicant identified as the inventor an artificial intelligence
Although the U.S. patent Act does not specifically require a machine called DABUS. The applicant explained that the machine
natural person to be identified as the inventor, the regulations are was the one that both came up with the novel idea and identified
written in such a way that implicitly presuppose that the inventor its significance. Moreover, he stated that identifying anyone else
will be human. Examples can be seen in the famous quote as the inventor would be misleading and against the principle of
regarding what is an invention "anything under the sun that is the law. The ownership of the rights he applied for, would be
made by man"41 and the phrasing of the mental requirement that conferred to the applicant himself, either as successor of the
requires that the idea has already been conceived "in the mind" of inventor in title or by the exception of employment law; an
the inventor42. However, it is only natural that when these exception that allows the employer to be the default owner of the
provisions where made machines that could operate inventions created by their employees.
autonomously and systems like neural networks and genetic
algorithms where far beyond science-fiction. Hence, the phrasing After considering the applications, the EPO came to the decision
of the regulations does not indicate a decision of the legislator to to reject51 the identification of DABUS as the inventor and
exclude non-humans, but rather the simple fact that only humans consequently to reject the patent as well. The decision was based
could then be imagined of being capable to invent and act on the fact that Artificial Intelligence systems do not have any sort
autonomously. On the other hand, regulations and precedents, of legal personality and the EPO provides only for persons. Since
even from that time, actively make efforts to deny people that did they are not persons, they cannot hold the rights provided by the
not have a significant involvement in a solution to be named EPC and thus it is not possible to be recognized as inventors. It is
"inventors"43. The same goes for other jurisdictions as well, such also mentioned in the decision that the boards have not yet
as the UK, where under the Patent Act of 1977 an inventor is "the answered in the question of whether entities other than natural
actual diviser of the invention"44, presupposing a substantial persons can be inventors. They continue to elaborate that the
contribution in the inventive concept. Moreover, in Germany, to employer exception cannot be applied since there is no
qualify as an inventor one must both contribute substantially in employment relationship between a machine and a person. The
the inventive process and the contribution has to originate from same goes for the succession of title; since AIs do not hold any
that person rather than a product of other people directions45. Last rights it follows that it is impossible to transfer rights. The owner
but not least, in Switzerland, the invention has to be conceived at of the machine is by default the owner of the content generated
such a level that a person skilled in the art could reduce it into by the machine.
practice46.
In light of these, the question of whether AI should or should not
On the other hand, as mentioned before, there is the possibility of be granted inventorship is unfolding to reveal its pertinent
the inventor to "discover the subject matter of the invention". This elements. On the one hand, an AI does not have at the moment
way, inventorship is also grated to a person that is the first one to any legal personality and thus is absent of any rights and claims
acknowledge the importance of an invention that already exists. deriving from the law. Hence, the question of them being granted
This provision allows for an invention by accident or pure luck. inventorship stands void. On the other hand, by abiding to the
current patent system and allowing the end user to enjoy The utilitarian perspective of Patent Law is really prevalent in the
inventorship for the works of the inventive computer, even if they Mazer v. Stein59 case, where the Supreme Court of the U.S. stated,
had minimal or no input, we are distorting the integrity of the concerning the rewards for the inventor, ".... is wholly
patent system as well as incentivizing a new "minimal effort" secondary....... [t]he sole interest of the United States … [is] the
regime for inventions where people spending their lives in search general benefits derived by the public from the labors of authors
for an invention would be equated with the people spending their and encouragement of individual effort by personal gain is the
money to buy inventive machines. This paper stands by the view best way to advance public welfare . . . .". Furthermore, section 103
that the current patent system will need to adjust to the new of the USPA provides that a patent will not be denied due to the
reality of things and evolve to balance once again the conflicting manner in which the invention was achieved. The invention could
interests. well be a product of luck or happenstance rather than of effort and
research and it will still be patentable. Indeed, section 101 regards
discrimination over the circumstances in which the invention in
5. Philosophical Justifications for patent law question was made. The statements showcase the ultimate
reasons behind the USPA; social benefit60. The consideration of
There have been many theories behind the philosophical whether there should be computer inventors or not should be
justifications of Intellectual Property rights. In one of the most approached with these in mind. Questions such as "What would
accepted ones, Moore, provides three arguments that justify the be the purpose of naming a computer as inventor?, would
need for IP protection rights; the utilitarian justification, the anything be gained?, If so, whose right will be harmed?, Should
Lockean and the personality theory52.The utilitarian or otherwise the inventions be patented at all?, are crucial to the conclusion
known as incentives-based theory argues that in order to promote which we will reach.
creators into producing valuable content, they have to be granted
some sort of rights and ownership of their work. Otherwise, they The question of inventorship can be seen as a matching problem
might cease to create content and benefit society with their between the "designation of inventor" and one of the four
creations and inventions53. This theory explores the "socio- following cases: a) the inventor is a human, b) the inventor is a
economic" aspect of IP rights and happens to be the most pertinent computer, c) both a human and a computer are inventors, d)
one when discussing patent law54. Benefiting the public domain neither a human nor a computer are inventors61. It has already
with new technologies and designs through the disclosure of the been argued that naming a human as inventor in the case that a
inventions is the central goal of the patent system55. For this computer produces the invention without significant contribution
reason only it is that competition law bends to allow an absolute from any human in the inventive process would be unfair and
monopoly over the patented inventions. In the Lockean theory, would transform current inventors into computer investors. Since
individual labor is the key value that must be protected. Locke the owner of the machine would be able to extract full value out
theorized that when a person labors on an object that is un-owned, of the machine62 (no salary, no special provisions, no possibility
then that object is infused with that labor and cannot be separated of the machine working for someone else), the cost of the
thereafter56. By that reasoning, after this infusion of personal computer's maintenance would be far less that employing human
labor with the object of creation/invention a right of ownership is full time inventors, and the pace of inventive discoveries would
formed connecting the laborer with the object of labor. A person skyrocket, the innovation market will drastically transform to
has a right of a reward for his work and personal labor, and that adapt to this new cost effective strategy for invention.
has to be protected by Intellectual Property laws57. The
personality theory is very close to the Lockean one, but rather On the other hand, computers currently do not possess legal
than the labor being infused with the item of interest it is the personality and cannot hold rights. Thus, at the moment is seems
personality of the subject that lies within one's creation. Their purposeless to designate a computer as inventor 63. Nevertheless,
values, beliefs, way of thinking, feelings and experiences are even if AIs are not to be incentivized through patents to work
sculpted inside each of their creations, be that tangible or harder and strive, the developers and software engineers, the
intangible58. Excluding that last theory, which is most pertinent in trainers and the researchers will64. Morally, though, there should
copyright law, the other two theories should play an important be no advantages to be gained from such a designation. Moreover,
role in the journey of deciding whether computers should be a 2016 paper on the motivations of software engineers65
grated inventorship or not, for when faced with a unprecedented showcases that the majority are not motivated be reasons relating
challenge in law, it is crucial that we look in the justifications of to patents and monopolies, but form other reasons such as
the existing provisions to identify the reason behind our next challenges, autonomy of work, potential of recognition and
steps. others.
Of course, if neither a human nor a computer can be named
inventors, it would seem irrational to support the idea of a joint
6. Computer Inventorship inventorship between the two. Hence, the only possibility that is
left open is that no patent should be granted at all 66. However, to
avoid patents would not be without consequences. If patents are
not available for AI generated inventions, then owners of the most values the patent of an AI generated machine is the AI user72.
systems will try and protect their inventions as trade secrets and Ryan Abbott73 considers also the case where ownership will lie
thus deprive the public from the disclosure of a novel with the owner (user) of the AI as the optimal, in terms of creating
technology67. In such a case, the ultimate goal of the patent system easier challenges to deal with. For example, a company designing
would completely fail. In light of these, the question, according to inventive computers that still wants to hold the ownership rights
the writer, now becomes: Which of the two non-perfect solutions of the patents produced by their AI, could simply license the AI
will better balance the conflicting interests and will better serve instead of selling it74. This way, they are still they owner of the AI
the ultimate goal of public welfare? or should there be a reshape and, hence, of the patent as well. He then proposes a regime where
in patent law or a sui generis system to regulate these the default rule would be to assign ownership rights to the user,
circumstances? but leave the final arrangement to contractual freedom, meaning
that they will be able to agree differently 75. Another view is that
ownership will be assigned to the designer company, since they
In order to reach to a conclusion, it is important that we first look provided all the actual work into developing the AI, except if the
at the challenges that arise concerning the ownership of such user has bought the computer specifically for the purpose of
inventions. In the case that ownership can be fairly attributed, inventing76. Without the need to conclude in a certain regime,
then the lack of moral justification for the designation of an AI as there seems to be a number of possibilities that one can take in
inventor, or rather the presence of the moral justification to deny order to answer the question of ownership, and all lead to justified
people who did not have a significant contribution to the allocations.
inventive process of an AI generated invention, should be enough
in allowing such a deviation in the patent system. However, an
issue that is significant and has to addressed, although not in this 8. Preliminary conclusions /thoughts
paper, is the challenges that the capability of an AI to produce
massive volumes of "inventions" every day will bring forth in the The normative question, in the end, boils down to whether AIs
patent system in terms of saturation of the patent market and not being persons is reason enough to exclude them from patent
magnification of the State of the Art and its effect on the non- inventorship. Ryan Abbott suggests that if that is the case, it
obviousness and novelty tests. Of course, this whole discussion is would be better to prohibit it explicitly rather that relying on the
only relevant in the cases that the AI would be the sole contributor implied intentions of the legislator to grant this privilege only to
in the "conception" of the novel idea. Otherwise, granting human beings77. The fundamental question, however, that
inventorship to a person that indeed invented patentable content rationally proceeds the previous one is whether AI innovations
alongside the assistance of an AI would be completely consistent should be granted patents. This issue should be balanced between
with the purposes of Patent Law. the disruption of the current patent system from the volume of
the new patented inventions and the social loss generated from
the nondisclosure of these new technologies. Because in the end,
7. Allocation of ownership rights in case of as EPO explained in the DABUS case78, it is for the public or the
patented inventions actual inventor to challenge the designation of the inventor,
which means that most of the times a person will still be able to
The fact that computers do not have a legal personality and thus apply for a patent and not disclose that the invention was created
cannot own property is pretty straightforward. Also, computer by an AI. The AI will never challenge the designation and the
personality is still not close enough to start regulating this way68. public will rarely know or act. The hypothesis is based on the fact
Thus, in the case that we decide to designate AI as inventors there that this already happens for decades as we already discussed 79.
should be implemented provisions regarding the assignment of
ownership of the patented inventions. Ownership rights will
create strong economic incentives for the utilization of creative 9. Conclusion
computers69. Hence, the correct allocation of ownership rights is
crucial to the shaping of the new patent landscape, or is it? Addressing the issue of inventive computers and the possibility of
According to the Coase Theorem70, which advocates economic them being identified as inventors in patents is a challenging task
efficiency (meaning a situation where all parties benefit to the with many obstacles and various sections. This paper argues that
maximum amount of not harming other parties), the one that most the underlying problem behind the designation is whether it
values the product will take the appropriate actions to ultimately would be beneficial to grant patents to AI all together. If patents
own it. An ownership right is transferable and thus can be sold are deemed to not be the ideal regime to protect the inventions of
and bought. It does not matter to whom it will be initially inventive computers, then other provisions should be applied;
allocated, because the party that values it the most will eventually either other kinds of protection or a new sui generis system to
buy it71. Of course, there will be a bigger margin for economic provide for these cases specifically. On the other hand, if he
benefit if the rights are allocated correctly form the start. Michael legislator decides on using the patent system, this paper finds
Schuster argues in his analysis of the subject that the entity that unjust and unreasonable to designate any human for the work
done by a computer autonomously (for high level autonomous AI 14Jo Best, 'IBM Watson: The inside story of how the Jeopardy-
creative computers). The two choices left, are either to identify the winning supercomputer was born, and what it wants to do next',
machine itself as an inventor or to create a genuine category of (TECHREPUBLIC, 9 Sept, 2013)
patents with no inventors. The incentives that are necessary, since
whereas inventorship provides moral incentives and recognition, 15Ryan Abbott, (n4).
things unneeded for a machine. The ownership of the patents 16Shlomit Yanisky Ravid & Xiaoqiong (Jackie) Liu (n3)
could be assigned by default to the owner of the AI with the 17Dana S. Rao, 'Neural Networks: Here, There, and Everywhere -
exception of a different agreement between the parties. The An Examination of Available Intellectual Property Protection for
versatility of such a regime will provide the market with new Neural Networks in Europe and the United States', (1997) 30 GEO.
dynamics and incentives for a variety of workers, since the WASH. J. INT’L L. & ECON. 509
demand for these experts will rise to meet the demand of the 18Ray Kurzweil, How to create a mind: The secret of human thought
machines. revealed, (2012) Viking Press 124
19'What Is the Ultimate Idea?', IMAGINATION ENGINES INC.,
http://www.imagination-engines.com [https://perma.cc/P877-
10. Endnotes F33B]
20Tina Hesman, 'Stephen Thaler’s Computer Creativity Machine
1Michael Schuster, 'Artificial Intelligence and Patent Ownership' Simulates the Human Brain', (ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH, Jan.
(2018) 76 W&L Law Review 1945 24, 2004), available at
2Liana Baker, 'Tech Moguls Declare Era of Artificial Intelligence' http://www.mindfully.org/Technology/2004/Creativity-Machine-
(Thompson Reuters, 3 June 2016) haler24jan04.htm> accessed 2 May 2020
22Tina Hesman, (n20)
accessed 1 May 2020 23U.S. Patent No. '851 (filed July 12, 2002)
3Shlomit Yanisky Ravid & Xiaoqiong (Jackie) Liu, 'When artificial 24Ryan Abbott, (n4).
intelligence systems produce inventions: An alternative model for 25Telephone Interview with John Koza, President, Genetic
patent law at the 3A era', (2018) 39 Cardozo Law Review 2215 Programming Inc. (Jan. 22, 2016)
4Ryan Abbott, I Think, Therefore I Invent: Creative Computers 26Ryan Abbott, (n4).
and the Future of Patent Law, (2016) 57 B.C. L. REV. 1079, 1080 27Ryan Abbott, 'The artificial inventor project',(WIPO Magazine,
5Ray Kurzweil, 'The Virtual Thomas Edison', (TIME, Dec. 3, 2018) Dec 2019)
accessed 1 May 2020 html>
6World Intellectual Property Organization, ‘Impact of Artificial 28Patents, World Intellectual Property Organization, available at
Intelligence on IP Policy: Call for Comments' http://www.wipo.int/patents/en/.
http://innovation.unh.edu/patent-protection,
Accessed 5 May 2020 30Noam Shemtov, 'A study on inventorship in inventions
7European Patent Office, EP 18 275 163 and EP 18 275 174 (2018) involving AI activity', (2019) Commissioned by the European
8Matthew U. Scherer, 'Regulating Artificial Intelligent Systems: Patent Office
Risks, Challenges, Competencies, and Strategies' (2016) 29 HARV. 31Francesco Banterle, 'Ownership of inventions created by
J.L. & TECH. 353, 354–55 at 360. Artificial Intelligence' (2018) AIDA
9Daniel Crevier, AI: The tumultuous history of the search for 32Ibid.
artificial intelligence (1993) Basic Books 33Anmol Maheshwari, 'Dawn of Artificial Intelligence Changing
10Sean Illing, 'Why Not All Forms of Artificial Intelligence Are the Face of Patent Regime' (2019) 5 Amity International Journal of
Equally Scary', (VOX, Mar. 8, 2017) Juridical Sciences 126
accessed 27 April 2020 36Noam Shemtov (n30).
11Russ Pearlman, 'Recognizing Artificial Intelligence (AI) as 37The Constitution of the United State Article I(8)(8)
Authors and Inventors Under U.S. Intellectual Property Law, 38Townsend v Smith (1929) Federal Reporter 292,293
(2018) 24 RICH. J. L. & TECH. no. 2 39Ibid.
12Sean Illing (n8). 40Ryan Abbott, (n4).
13David Ferrucci et al., 'Building Watson: An Overview of the 41Diamond v. Chakrabarty, (1980) 447 U.S. 303
DeepQA Project', (Fall 2010) AI MAG., at 59, 68–69
42Cyril Soans, 'Some Absurd Presumptions in Patent Cases', 73Ryan Abbott, (n4).
(1966-1967 ) 10 Pat. Trademark & Copy. J. Res. & Ed. 433 and 74Ibid.
Townsend v. Smith (n38) 75Ibid.
43Fiers v. Revel, (Fed. Cir. 1993), 984 F.2d 1164, 1168, 25 USPQ2d 76Francesco Banterle (n31)
1601, 1604-05 "The threshold question in determining 77Ryan Abbott, (n4).
inventorship is who conceived the invention. Unless a person 78European Patent Office, EP 18275163.6 (2019)
contributes to the conception of the invention, he is not an 79Ryan Abbott, (n4).
inventor
44UK Patent Act 1977, Section 7(3)
45Noam Shemtov, 'A study on inventorship in inventions 11. REFERENCES
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46Ibid.
47Silvestri v. Grant, (C.C.P.A. 1974) 496 F.2d 593, 597 1. The Constitution of the United State Article I(8)(8)
2. UK Patent Act 1977, Section 7(3)
48Ryan Abbott, (n4).
49European Patent Office, EP 18 275 163 (2018) PRECEDENTS
50European Patent Office, EP 18 275 174 (2018) 1.Bonito Boats, Inc. v. Thunder Craft Boats, Inc., 489 U.S. 141, 151 (1989)
51 European Patent Office, EP 18275163.6 (2019) 2. Diamond v. Chakrabarty, (1980) 447 U.S. 303
52A. Moore, 'Intellectual Property', (Summer 2011 Edition) The 3. Fiers v. Revel, (Fed. Cir. 1993), 984 F.2d 1164, 1168, 25 USPQ2d 1601, 1604-05
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