C4IP Co-Chairs and former USPTO Directors Andrei Iancu and David Kappos just published a new opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal exploring how the ambiguity of the USPTO’s recent guidance on patenting AI-assisted inventions could inadvertently discourage inventors from making use of artificial intelligence tools.
They highlight numerous ambiguities in the guidance — including not defining what computer functions or programs constitute AI — and argue that this uncertainty will put a target on the back of any patent application that made use of a computer, potentially denying patent protection to the very researchers driving our progress in high-tech fields.
Instead of finalizing this flawed guidance, Iancu and Kappos write, the Patent Office should “do its part to encourage AI-facilitated inventions by issuing new guidance that recognizes AI as a tool—and a productive one at that.”
Read their full op-ed here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-patent-guidance-on-ai-could-quash-innovation-dd848ea4