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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

#111

Post by yieldcrv »

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 could be into that

Patents have been mostly a pride checkbox for me, but at the same time being able to get credit for something you could never build is interesting. I’m less supportive of the loose monopoly part though, that seems to be the real issue dampening innovation

Everyone hates patent trolls (non practicing entities who dont implement the idea themselves), but practically its an extremely high burden. I did some patents on financial market plumbing, implementing that requires licensing and infrastructure far beyond any coding or building problem

Thinking of it 10 years before investment banks get around to it I think should still be incentivized someway

But the current system is cooked

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

#113

Post by ThrustVectoring »

kube-system wrote: post #57
michaelfm1211 wrote: post #28

Can the petitioner re-file with his own name as the inventor, or does this mean that all AI-generated inventions are unable to be patented?

Broadly speaking, IP law generally exists to protect the rights of humans. The law doesn't generally recognize that inanimate objects have rights. The idea that an AI could have some sort of property rights is a nonstarter, legally speaking. It's just as invalid of a legal idea as claiming that a tree could have a patent on the shape of its leaf. So when people go to the patent office and say "I didn't make this! an…

Even if you were to extend rights to non-human entities, there's still a practical matter in that the legal system does not know how to compel testimony from an LLM (or a monkey for that matter, for a past attempt at copyrighting a photograph taken by a non-human primate)

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

#114

Post by clickety_clack »

shimman wrote: post #103
svara wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You spend billions to get a drug from concept to approval - and then once you've invested all that money, someone else can just sell it too, free loading on all the studies you ran? Why would anyone invest in drug studies? I need a bit more depth and detail to believe that this doesn't destroy the pharma industry. What would the empirical evidence even look like? It's not like the modern pharma industry existed befor…

[flagged]

This may surprise socialists, but you can set up a pharma company yourself right now that makes all its research open.

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

#115

Post by Lerc »

pfdietz wrote: post #84
Frost1x wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI use is slowly creeping into pure mathematics and proving theorems or providing legging to mathematical breakthroughs. Just go watch some Terrance Tao videos to see some recent work. In addition, theorem provers and the likes have been around for awhile. Some of these systems create novel ideas or bridge novel ideas in ways that are arguably not “obvious” in any sense of the term. While as a species our key strengt…

No, I mean legally they should be considered obvious, as the difficulty to create them becomes small. It makes no sense to give someone a monopoly on an idea that anyone could get just by prompting an AI. Now if the invention also includes some real world work, or if the AI took a huge amount of tokens/money to reach the conclusion, ok. But otherwise an AI coming up with the idea at low cost should invalidate a paten…

That's ease, not obviousness.

I think if an AI solves a problem that has been known and unsolved for a substantial period of time dispute attempts then the solution could only be considered non obvious.

If we make AI that can do 6 of these things before breakfast then we should think of them as easy to obtain.

The distinction is that non-obious to a human was a property that denoted a degree of specialness. If AI could do those things with ease then they cease to be special.

It was that factor that led people to be awarded some form of monopoly over the creation. But if it is no longer particularly special, then it should be public domain.

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

#116

Post by kube-system »

nashashmi wrote: post #96
kube-system wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Broadly speaking, IP law generally exists to protect the rights of humans. The law doesn't generally recognize that inanimate objects have rights. The idea that an AI could have some sort of property rights is a nonstarter, legally speaking. It's just as invalid of a legal idea as claiming that a tree could have a patent on the shape of its leaf. So when people go to the patent office and say "I didn't make this! an…

Listing out inventors is not about protecting the rights of humans but giving proper attribution to the works. The owner (person or corp) gets protection. AI is attributed as contributor or inventor. With that said, AI contribution should always be disclosed in every medium that it participated in, including patents.

> Listing out inventors is not about protecting the rights of humans but giving proper attribution to the works.

This sentence contradicts itself. The reason we attribute inventors is because we recognize it as a legal right. Patents exist to give humans, whether working individually or in a group, an exclusive right to that invention for a period of time, as a legal protection for the activity of inventing.

My math teacher made me say whether or not I used a calculator. But that's not a requirement for patents.

You don't need to say what tools you used, even if you used a really big calculator.

Also, calculators don't anthropomorphize into inventors when they get really big. Inventing is, by definition, only something humans can do. Even other living creatures cannot be inventors.

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

#117

Post by tossandthrow »

Lerc wrote: post #106
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.

> No AI has accountability so also should not own any benefits That doesn't follow at all. A baby doesn't have accountability, but has benefits. I'm all for accountability being required for important descion making. I too wouldn't let babies make similar descisions. This non sequitur just makes it sound like you're throwing around talking points and getting them mixed up.

What benefits does a baby hold? Can a baby freely open a bank account, start a company, get married?

A baby has the benefit of being attended their basic needs. Just like Ai is also being fed power.

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

#118

Post by kube-system »

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #113
kube-system wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Broadly speaking, IP law generally exists to protect the rights of humans. The law doesn't generally recognize that inanimate objects have rights. The idea that an AI could have some sort of property rights is a nonstarter, legally speaking. It's just as invalid of a legal idea as claiming that a tree could have a patent on the shape of its leaf. So when people go to the patent office and say "I didn't make this! an…

Even if you were to extend rights to non-human entities, there's still a practical matter in that the legal system does not know how to compel testimony from an LLM (or a monkey for that matter, for a past attempt at copyrighting a photograph taken by a non-human primate)

And the entire point of a patent is to allow an inventor to profit from their invention for a fixed period of time to encourage inventors to invent things.

This makes no sense when applied to a box of numbers. Numbers cannot have money, numbers are not motivated to make money, numbers cannot do anything on their own.

This isn't real-life sesame street where today's episode was brought to us by a walking and talking number 7.

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

#119

Post by koolba »

shimman wrote: post #103
svara wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You spend billions to get a drug from concept to approval - and then once you've invested all that money, someone else can just sell it too, free loading on all the studies you ran? Why would anyone invest in drug studies? I need a bit more depth and detail to believe that this doesn't destroy the pharma industry. What would the empirical evidence even look like? It's not like the modern pharma industry existed befor…

[flagged]

Some will surely exist. We already have public funding for things that are not particularly profitable. The question is if it will net a better system overall.

Even with the current system everything older than X years is public. That means we should have better care options available then anything X years ago. And that keeps increasing.

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