The U.S. Patent and Trade Office (USPTO) issued new guidance last week on the eligibility for patent invention assignment for “AI-assisted inventions”, reaffirming earlier guidance and U.S. case law that stipulates only natural persons can be named inventors on patents.
Realizing the longer term consequences of AI on the intellectual property (IP) world, it’s easy to call for open source technologies to the rescue, especially when losing innovation value for people and businesses, but also in consideration of society’s general development and even humanity’s collective evolution. — Toby Ruckert
However, if patents cannot be kept as the last line of defense for human led business models that put human interests first, then a situation could arise where human ingenuity becomes dependent on licensing rights from an AI driven IP ownership.
As such, it is of critical importance that AI:
cannot hold patents under its name; but instead
must eventually license IP from its human creators (or co-creators).
It’s really not much different compared to why certain countries only allow their own citizens to buy or invest in local land/property, simply to protect native, natural and obvious interests.
In the long run such rulings may well decide whether humanity will remain creators and custodians of AI or could face the risk of becoming its creation‘s first victim of slavery.
What do you think?