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AI can't be listed as inventor on patent applications, Japan's top court rules

japannews.yomiuri.co.jp

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Re: AI can't be listed as inventor on patent applications, Japan's top court rules

#61

Post by RHSeeger »

ajkjk wrote: post #44
Charon77 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't prove something is/isn't created with AI. Also, if AI generated content cannot be copyrighted, they can't infringe copyright as well

Of the three claims you just made, two are clearly false and the third is probably also... You can prove something is created by AI by e.g. showing the transcripts, especially from the vendor side. You cannot prove that something isn't created with AI, at least not if you require incontrovertible proof (outside of, like, working in some kind of verifiably AI-free clean room, or doing something that current models are…

> If AI generated content cannot be copyrighted, it does not follow at all that they can't infringe copyright; there is no deductive step there that I can think of.

I assume the idea is that the fault/blame lies with the human(s) that caused the AI to generate something that violates copyright. Going back to previous comments, the typewriter that generated a document didn't infringe copyright - the person using it did.

Re: AI can't be listed as inventor on patent applications, Japan's top court rules

#62

Post by kube-system »

Charon77 wrote: post #40
scotty79 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, please let it be the second option. Let AI be the thing that kills the "intellectual property" because humans will never manage to shake off that terribly wrong decision by themselves.

You can't prove something is/isn't created with AI. Also, if AI generated content cannot be copyrighted, they can't infringe copyright as well

Who says you need to? You can't definitively prove that prior art does/doesn't exist, either. That's not an impediment to getting a patent. The patent will be examined and issued based on the evidence found. If invalidating evidence is found later, the patent can be invalidated.

In a legal context what is necessary is evidence, not a math/logic formal proof.

> Also, if AI generated content cannot be copyrighted, they can't infringe copyright as well

Because AI cannot pay fines, go to jail, or be assigned the rights of a human. However, a human who uses AI can. If you use AI to infringe copyright, you have infringed the copyright, not the AI.

Re: AI can't be listed as inventor on patent applications, Japan's top court rules

#64

Post by layer8 »

sebastianconcpt wrote: post #21

Sanity! No AI has accountability so also should not own any benefits (not only patent but anything beneficial). Violate that and you created a blackhole of value creation.

This appears to be confusing patent inventors with patent owners. It’s the latter who benefit and presumably are accountable for the use of the patent and potential plagiarism.

Re: AI can't be listed as inventor on patent applications, Japan's top court rules

#66

Post by sebastianconcpt »

layer8 wrote: post #64
sebastianconcpt wrote: post #21

Sanity! No AI has accountability so also should not own any benefits (not only patent but anything beneficial). Violate that and you created a blackhole of value creation.

This appears to be confusing patent inventors with patent owners. It’s the latter who benefit and presumably are accountable for the use of the patent and potential plagiarism.

Isn't patenting an action to protect a benefit (whichever patent or benefit would be)?

Re: AI can't be listed as inventor on patent applications, Japan's top court rules

#68

Post by ux266478 »

ProllyInfamous wrote: post #10

I don't personally feel the inevitable UBI/subsistance will make intellectual property much of a patentable/profitable field (...for too much longer), thanks to generative AIs' massive transformations (entrylevel &+). The US ruled similarly to Japan, but years ago , from copyrights through patents... from my limited POV, the LLMs (specifically) and art models are just regurgitating stolen concepts ... echo'ing Picass…

> from my limited POV, the LLMs (specifically) and art models are just regurgitating stolen concepts

Formally speaking, it's not the case, though this is commonly misunderstood. Statistical models are definitionally ampliative, otherwise they wouldn't be statistical. One can argue about it until they're blue in the face, but it almost always comes down to a misunderstanding of what the models are, what the mathematics behind them is a description of, and what the underlying logical structures represent.

The thing is that the position and objection to these models isn't actually a substantial, reasoned position where the words have a direct meaning. Though it's dressed up like reason, it's not the point. It's a kind of metaphor. This actually does reflect the nature of intellectual property law. The legal framework is knowingly illogical at an object-level, because the end its seeking is completely divorced from the means. It has to be, because the idea of intellectual property is absolutely unjustifiable in-and-of-itself. It's just a useful legal fiction to make sure people are getting paid by commoditizing ideation. That's not a bad thing, it just means you have to be mindful that bottom-up reason will lead you astray when dealing with it.

Re: AI can't be listed as inventor on patent applications, Japan's top court rules

#69

Post by layer8 »

ep103 wrote: post #60
alzamos wrote: post #53

The book “against intellectual monopoly” has shaped a lot of my thinking on this topic - economists have looked at the various occasions in which patents were introduced into an industry (or extended in scope), and there is no evidence they actually improve innovation/efficiency/outcomes (including the pharma industry!). I was quite surprised as my whole life, it was sold to me as an incentive-boosting measure which…

I'm having a hard time even grappling with how that could be true? I always assumed that intellectual property was invented in order to protect against a specific use case: If researching a new product is extremely cost intensive. But once a product is invented, it is easy to reverse engineer how the product works. Then the first firm will need intellectual property to put in the initial cost, otherwise they will not…

Indeed. Patents incentivize investment in R&D. There is an argument to be made that the scope of patentable inventions should be more limited, in particular preventing trivial patents that didn’t require substantial R&D, and maybe also that patents shouldn’t last as long.

But doing away completely with patents would certainly stifle companies’ willingness to invest in R&D. They’d rather wait for someone else to invent something they can copy.

Re: AI can't be listed as inventor on patent applications, Japan's top court rules

#70

Post by layer8 »

sebastianconcpt wrote: post #66
layer8 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This appears to be confusing patent inventors with patent owners. It’s the latter who benefit and presumably are accountable for the use of the patent and potential plagiarism.

Isn't patenting an action to protect a benefit (whichever patent or benefit would be)?

Yes? But it’s not the AI that would receive the benefits, and where does accountability of patent inventors come in?
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