US Supreme Court Declines to Take Up Lawsuit Over Patents for AI-Generated Inventions

Legal Insurrection ^ | 04/25/2023 | Leslie Eastman

[Rusty0604]

Stephen Thaler petitioned the high court to review an appeals court’s decision that patents can only be issued to human inventors and that his AI system cannot be the legal creator of inventions it generated.

Thaler said in his brief that AI is being used to innovate in fields ranging from medicine to energy, and that rejecting AI-generated patents “curtails our patent system’s ability — and thwarts Congress’s intent — to optimally stimulate innovation and technological progress.”

SCOTUS declined to take up his case.

The justices turned away Thaler’s appeal of a lower court’s ruling that patents can be issued only to human inventors and that his AI system could not be considered the legal creator of two inventions that he has said it generated.

Perhaps Thaler should claim his AI identifies as a human being?

[Rusty0604]

As artificial intelligence continues to disrupt the entertainment industry, many moviegoers have been left wondering at what point AI will be creating full feature films. According to Joe Russo, co-director of Marvel movies such as “Avengers: Endgame” and “Avengers: Infinity War,” that time could be coming in two years.

Here’s hoping that the AI-created films don’t go all in on woke content! And while woke inputs will create woke output, AI can be edited to produce alternative fare that would be impossible to produce in today’s Hollywood.

[Theoria]

AI will empower creators to develop movies out of a bedroom. Every home in the country will have the chance to be Hollywood. The future of media, entertainment, gaming, etc etc cannot grasp the implications going forward. Society will be forever changed with newer and newer developments going forward.

[AndyTheBear]

...lower court’s ruling that patents can be issued only to human inventors and that his AI system could not be considered the legal creator of two inventions that he has said it generated.

This guys lawsuit seems ridiculous.

If somebody uses a tool, be it a piece of paper, a calculator, a pencil, or software to create something then we have always considered them to be the creator of an otherwise patentable product right?

Nobody stops to think it might be the piece of paper, the calculator, the pencil, or software that ought to be considered the creator. Why should AI software be different?

[DEPcom]

“The justices turned away Thaler’s appeal of a lower court’s ruling that patents can be issued only to human inventors and that his AI system could not be considered the legal creator of two inventions that he has said it generated.”

In order for AI to produce a solution, a human must input and accurately describe the problem to the AI. AI does not have the ability to invent solutions on its own.

[Boogieman]

The fact is that patents (and the rest of intellectual property considerations) are designed to allow humans to earn a living off their creative work. AI doesn’t need to earn a living, so there is no justifiable need for their creative work to be protected. They can go right into the pool of common knowledge for the betterment of all mankind.

Besides which, intellectual property laws are already obsolete and unenforceable, society just hasn’t caught up with the change in reality yet. So it certainly makes no sense to expand them when they are bound to go the way of the Dodo soon anyway. Not that this objection will have much effect on humans; we’ll obstinately cling to the obsolete ideas as long as we can, as we always do.

[Boogieman]

“Here’s hoping that the AI-created films don’t go all in on woke content!”

If you’re worried about that, just train your own AI to produce non-woke content. If this really comes about, then private citizens will be able to pump out feature films just about as easily as the studios. The studios will still have an edge in marketing, but they’re going to need it if they are competing with the populace at large who just want to make an entertaining product and who aren’t saddled with trying to please all the political commissars.

[Rusty0604]

The government figured out they would be losing out on payroll taxes with robots. I remember the proposal that companies using robots would have to pay taxes on thenm to compensate the government for their supposed loss.
I don’t know if that went anywhere. I’m sure they extract the money somewhere.

[yelostar]

AI - another make-believe problem created to coerce the citizen into surrendering his freedom.

[I want the USA back]

An AI system is a team of human programmers acting by proxy. If their program produces something of value, the team is the one that has created it and deserves the royalties.

AI systems are not humans, in spite of what some science fiction writers would like to believe, and they do not bear responsibility for their actions and do not get to benefit from their creations. And AI systems are not persons. They are programs.

[omega4412]

The lawsuit would be more credible if it had been filed by the AI, not the human.

[Rusty0604]

That quote is from the article, but you are correct in your analysis.
Hollywood, for years, slyly snuck leftist ideas in fictional dramas or comedy. People want entertainment, so overt political content wouldn’t susceed.

[PUGACHEV]

Most Hollwood script writing is so hopelessly formulaic, I see no reason why AI would not be a perfect match for it.

[Rusty0604]

Good points.

[Rusty0604]

Ha!

[Dr. Sivana]

Well, I asked the AI for lyrics to a pop song suitable for the present day, and it responded,

"It was only a hopeless fancy, it passed like an April day, but a look and a word, and the dreams they stirred,they've stolen my heart away?"

[Dr. Sivana]

These folks are way ahead of themselves. If technology can’t even make auto tune sound real, new movies with a young Marilyn Monroe and Carrie Grant are galaxies away. Simoné is a fantasy.

[Rusty0604]

I wonder what would emerge AI was programmed by public school curriculum and actual teachers?

[Rusty0604]

Hmm. There’s probably many songs in that I could mention if asked. Probably so with most on this board.

[Rebel_Ace]

"...If somebody uses a tool, be it a piece of paper, a calculator, a pencil, or software to create something then we have always considered them to be the creator of an otherwise patentable product right?

Nobody stops to think it might be the piece of paper, the calculator, the pencil, or software that ought to be considered the creator. Why should AI software be different?..."

Here's the fundamental difference, which I will illustrate with some examples...

In all these examples, some one named Joe has identified some need, but does not have a clue about how to fill it.

Example 1: Joe walks up to Frank the Inventor and asks him, "I would like a device that runs on sunlight and produces hydrogen for fuel later. Can you make that?" Frank works hard and creates the plans for the device. Who did the inventing? Obviously Frank.

Example 2: Joe walks up to Frank's office, but Frank is away at lunch. Joe asks Frank's calculator, then Frank's copy of Excel, and all the paper and pencils on Frank's desk for his 'Sunlight to Hydrogen' device. Nothing happens, because none of these things have any AGENCY to act on their own. Who did the inventing? Nobody, because no invention took form.

Example 3: Joe is tired of waiting for Frank, so he calls up a version of OMNI-Vent 3.5 AI, and asks it for his 'Sunlight to Hydrogen' device. The AI firsts looks to its training data, and finding nothing directly applicable, scours the vast internet for scraps of info that could be useful. It forms models, runs simulations, does 'competitive iterations' hundreds of thousands of times. In a future where this AI has access to physical manipulators and 3D printers, it might actual conduct real world evaluations. It then presents plans to Joe for his requested device. Who did the inventing? Clearly not Joe, he is just wishing for the thing. The programmers of OMNI-Vent 3.5? They invented an INVENTOR, so you might legally say they own the product of OMNI-Vent's output, but none of that team might know the slightest bit about chemistry or photovoltaic reactions.

The biggest misconception I see here on FR about AI, is that most people think it behaves like the simple, "linear instruction" programs they saw in college, or current use or write at work. Those are quite deterministic, where the author of the program has written specific rules for every condition the program will encounter. AI work today involves the synthesis of millions and millions and millions of test case inputs and results, where the system itself identifies patterns and conditions it deems relevant, and in many cases is free to alter its own base code. To even the people that create such systems, their behavior is not deterministic in any practical sense of the term. It in some sense has AGENCY to act.

[AndyTheBear]

The biggest misconception I see here on FR about AI, is that most people think it behaves like the simple, "linear instruction" programs they saw in college...

Well in my own case AI as a combination of search engine and solution trial engine.

If a person A makes a software program and person B runs the software program and it finds the ideas and discoveries of persons C, D, and E and combines them to suggest a solution then there are 5 people who may have some warrant for being credited with the invention. Who gets credit between A and B certainly will involve the license that B is using to use the software. The claims of C, D, and E against B would depend on whether the search part of the software pretty much copied their idea without giving them due credit. I see no need to bring the imagined agent X into it who is the software itself mistaken for an agent.