THE European Patent Office (EPO) has long sought to violate the EPC, e.g. by misinterpreting it, then grant loads of fake patents on abstract things. António Campinos is even more shameless about it than Benoît Battistelli. Campinos is one heck of a snake and since he never coded anything he can use his ignorance as an excuse for granting software patents in Europe. Nowadays they like to misuse words like "digitalisation" and "Hey Hi", which is what we call their clueless slant on machine learning and the like...
"Nowadays they like to misuse words like "digitalisation" and "Hey Hi", which is what we call their clueless slant on machine learning and the like..."I've done machine learning for a very long time (in 2003 I already wrote papers about it) and the term is actually a lot more meaningful than "Hey Hi", which is nonsensical fluff that goes back to the dawn of computing. It's the basic idea that computers can emulate some process humans otherwise do, e.g. playing chess (I wrote some computer programs that do this as far back as 2001 when I was a teenager). What's inexcusable is this bizarre resurgence in shallow media (bogus 'journalism') in recent years. A couple of years ago they started calling just about everything "Hey Hi", just as a decade or so earlier they began rebranding almost everything "cloud" and software became "apps"...
"The debate is, as usual, being hijacked by the patent (litigation) 'industry'..."This superficial transition from meaningful (relatively technical) terms to buzzwords and pure hype isn't an accident; it's a deliberate marketing strategy and a lot of it is geared towards surveillance as a business model. Patent lawyers too were fast to take advantage of these rebranding campaigns, calling it or hailing it all as some kind of "industrial revolution" (leading to fluff like "Industry 4.0" and "4IR"). This may seem funny, but there's a very nefarious and sinister angle to it all. So it isn't down to mere amusement...
The debate is, as usual, being hijacked by the patent (litigation) 'industry'...
As recently as yesterday we saw Anastasiia Kyrylenko at IP Kat as CIPA (Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys) megaphone, noting yesterday that:
On June 24th, the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys and Dr. Rhiannon Turner will be holding an online event to discuss the recent EPO EBA decision in G3/19...
Christopher Rennie-Smith, European Patent Consultant, former Chairman and legal member of a Technical Board of Appeal of the EPO; former member of the Enlarged Board of Appeal of the EPO
"Well, the Technical Board of Appeal of the EPO can no longer think for itself. The Office dictator pressures all the boards and his successor -- to whom he's an obedient heir -- already sent all board members to exile in Haar (at the very least as a collective warning)."Yesterday we reviewed the news only to find this nonsense pushed through Lexology under the headline "Algo IP: Intellectual Property in Algorithms, Computer Generated Works and Computer Implemented Inventions" (notice how they're using misnomers and conflating different things). The author is clearly not a coder and he jumps from one topic to another seamlessly; for instance, notice how he speaks of "computer implemented inventions" and then immediately leaps to joint inventions and computers as inventors (totally unrelated aspect). Have a look at the gobbledegook, with our comments below:
“It’s only AI when you don’t know what it does, then it’s just software and data” remains a useful heuristic to get to grips with AI algorithms. In legal terms, AI is a combination of software and data. An algorithm is a set of rules to solve a problem. The implementation in code of the algorithm is the software that gives instructions to the computer’s processor. What distinguishes an AI algorithm from traditional software is first, that the algorithm’s rules and software implementation are themselves dynamic and change as the machine learns; and second, the very large datasets (‘big data’) that the AI algorithm processes. The data is (i) the input training, testing and operational datasets; (ii) that input data as processed by the computer; (iii) the output data from those processing operations; and (iv) insights and data derived from the output data.
[...]
Use of algorithms may result in new inventions and the question arises whether computer implemented inventions are capable of patent protection. S.1(2)(c) Patents Act 1977 (‘PA’) excludes “a program for a computer” from patent protection to the extent that the patent application “relates to that thing as such”.[v] This has led to a line of cases in the UK since 2006 which has sought to establish and clarify a test for determining the contribution that the invention makes to the technical field of knowledge (potentially patentable) beyond the computer program “as such” (not patentable).[vi] If the invention is potentially patentable on this basis, s.7(3) PA provides that:
“[i]n this Act “inventor” in relation to an invention means the actual deviser of the invention and “joint inventor” shall be construed accordingly”
and s.7(2)(a) PA provides that a patent for invention may be granted “primarily to the inventor or joint inventors”. US law is more specific in defining (at 35 USC €§100(f) and (g)) “inventor” as “the individual or, if a joint invention, the individuals collectively who invented the subject matter of the invention”. The context of s.7(3) PA means that the “actual deviser of the invention” should be a “person” and there is no regime similar to that for copyright for computer-generated works.
Again, the takeaway from the patent law perspective is also that it is worth considering expressly covering in AI contracts the ownership, assignment and licensing aspects of AI-generated inventions and patent rights as well as copyright works.
"Kemp IT Law's Richard Kemp does the typical thing by conflating computer-generated junk patents and patents on algorithms (that are illegal)."How did he jump from the question of patents on algorithms to whether or not the patents are generated by a computer (as opposed to covering work done on a computer)? We've seen similar conflation put forth by the EPO's clueless managers, some of whom have zero experience in technology and just training in the British Army. Who needs managers with a clue anyway... right? Understanding restricts "useful" misunderstandings... and it can harm so-called EPO 'production'...
An article (promotion, sales, marketing) entitled "Protecting AI inventions" was pushed through IAM and then pushed through Lexology. It's not an objective analysis and this was all along just a self-promotional piece from Effectual Knowledge Services Pvt Ltd which says the following:
From tools and services to products and consultancies, AI has created a number of revenue-generating opportunities. It has already simplified a number of tasks and now, with the help of neural networks, it is inventing new ways to solve problems. Further, certain privileges have been granted to corporate entities (eg, Facebook and Google) so that they can defend themselves in court. It therefore follows that AI should be able to own its patents. However, debate is ongoing and requires considering where the line between creation by human and machine should be drawn and how much (or little) human input or guidance is required.
Recently, there was a case where the EPO refused European patent applications EP18275163 and EP18275174, which designated DABUS – a machine described as “a type of connectionist artificial intelligence” – as an inventor. One application was for a new type of beverage container based on fractal geometry and the other was for a device for attracting enhanced attention signals, which could be helpful in search and rescue operations. Similarly, the USPTO and UKIPO have disqualified patent applications on the grounds that a non-human cannot hold inventorship as per these countries’ laws.
"The real enemies of the patent system are those lunatics who latch onto buzzwords, speaking about things they clearly do not understand, all in the name of creating more lawsuits over more bogus patents."The patent system wasn't conceived as a framework for giving monopolies on mere thoughts or nature or maths and it wasn't made to reward some abstract concept of an algorithm (mis-framed as "Hey Hi").
The real enemies of the patent system are those lunatics who latch onto buzzwords, speaking about things they clearly do not understand, all in the name of creating more lawsuits over more bogus patents. ⬆