Inventions created by Artificial Intelligence in Manufacturing - Managing the IP

I was a panelist at an International Conference on Intellectual Property organized by CII in New Delhi recently (Nov 2017). The theme was AI in Manufacturing. I made three points

1. The adoption of AI in manufacturing is too important to be slowed down by the complexity of handling IP. Just because we don't know how to handle the IP, we cannot delay benefiting from AI and Automation in Manufacturing. Additive Manufacturing, Robotics, AI and Machine Learning are set to change the landscape of Manufacturing.

We can greatly accelerate innovation in manufacturing by partnering with AI.

2. The creation of patentable ideas by AI is not new.

The Creativity Machine is the brainchild of Dr. Stephen Thaler and is an Artificial Intelligence (AI) product that not only imitates original and creative thinking, but produces it. Thaler's machine has already been credited with the invention or improvement of a number of products and the creation of a number of original music compositions.

As early as 1997, Inventors have generated ideas with the help of AI and applied for patents - many of these patents have been granted - and the products have been sold in the market. The Inventor of the AI machine became the Inventor of the Ideas generated by the AI machine.

AI generated Inventions have been patented.

3. How can we improve the quality of IP by using AI

One of the key criteria for granting a patent is Non-Obviousness. The Idea shoudl be non-obviosu to a "Person of ordinary skill in the art " (POSA). This POSA is supposed to have a knowledge of all the prior art (in all the relevant domain). While it is difficult for a human being to have this vast knowledge, AI can easily serve as a POSA. Thus an AI POSA can accurately evaluate the non-obviousness of an idea submitted for patenting.

Let us use AI enhance the quality of the granted patents.

Recent Trends

Did you hear about - http://allpriorart.com/ and http://alltheclaims.com/

All Prior Art is a project attempting to algorithmically create and publicly publish all possible new prior art, thereby making the published concepts not patent-able. The concept is to democratize ideas, provide an impetus for change in the patent system, and to preempt patent trolls. The system works by pulling text from the entire database of US issued and published (un-approved) patents and creating prior art from the patent language. While most inventions generated will be nonsensical, the cost to computationally create and publish millions of ideas is nearly zero – which allows for a higher probability of possible valid prior art

All The Claims is a sister project to All Prior Art which is attempting to algorithmically create and publicly publish all possible new prior art, thereby making the published concepts not patent-able. The concept is to democratize ideas, provide an impetus for change in the patent system, and to preempt patent trolls. The system works by pulling text from the entire database of US issued and published (un-approved) patents and creating prior art from the patent language. While most inventions generated will be nonsensical, the cost to computationally create and publish millions of ideas is nearly zero – which allows for a higher probability of possible valid prior art.