Should AI Be Awarded Patents?
September 7, 2021
An artificial intelligence system cannot be awarded a US patent because only humans can be inventors under current law, a federal judge has ruled, noting that Congress has explicitly defined an inventor as an “individual.” But in Issues, Michael M. Rosen argues that rendering AI ineligible to receive patents “ignores the essential goal of the patent system, which is to stimulate emerging fields of innovation.” Recognizing machines as inventors, he writes, would foster more patents that can solve human problems, open wholly new ways of inventing, and reorient human inventive activity toward more fruitful areas of discovery.