I Am Not Sure Just What The Implications Are Of This – My Brain Hurts Just Thinking About It

This appeared last week.

Patently brilliant: AI listed as inventor for first time

By Tom Knowles

The Times

5:33PM July 28, 2021

The patent granted last week to a law professor based in Britain was, in most respects, not unusual. It was for interlocking food containers that are easy for robots to grasp and stack, and the creator is listed as Dabus. The difference is that Dabus is not human.

Intellectual property officials in South Africa have become the first in the world to award a patent that names an artificial intelligence as the inventor of a product. The moment is a triumph for Ryan Abbott, a professor at the University of Surrey who has for years led a battle for patent offices around the world to recognise artificial intelligences as inventors.

Under most laws in most jurisdictions, only humans can be listed as inventors on patents, as things cannot create other things, and even companies cannot be inventors, although they can be the owner of the patent.

Professor Abbott argues that denying the creative potential of machines could risk dampening investment and innovation in artificial intelligence. “We are moving from people inventing directly to building AIs that will invent things,” he said. “AI can, for example, look through a billion possible drugs to find one that treats a target, and that’s patentable stuff.

“And sometimes when AI does that, you just don’t have someone who qualifies as an inventor. If we say you can’t get patents on this, then that really says to companies that are investing in AI, like DeepMind or Siemens or Novartis, you can’t use AI in these areas.”

More here:

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/the-times/patently-brilliant-ai-listed-as-inventor-for-first-time/news-story/e04be5f5de22d3f443e432ffe158eb02

One question among many – does the AI get the royalties and what does it do with them?

The mind boggles!

David.