Business and intellectual-property representatives in the United States urged patent-law reform to recognise modern AI technologies. The The Register reports.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce held a series of hearings in which scientists, industry figures, and government officials raised questions that hinder the development of modern AI models. Among them were the patentability of algorithms and the need to grant copyright protections to inventions created by machines.
According to the witnesses, the existing intellectual-property law has hardly changed since its adoption in 1793. Despite a broad category of inventions that can be patented, registering machine-learning models remains difficult, experts say.
As examples, they cited difficulties with reproducibility and limited access to training data. As a result, patent examiners may reject applications if they deem the text confusing or not interpretable.
Experts urged amendments to the law so that machine-learning systems could be recognised as new inventions.
“The patent code that [our founders] implemented was fantastic, but they did not anticipate the processing of DNA, artificial intelligence, cryptography, programming and all modern technologies,” said the former director of the U.S. Copyright Office (USPTO) Andrey Yanku.
According to him, modernisation of patent-law is necessary to commercialise algorithms and accelerate innovation.
“This is absolutely necessary, and it is a matter of direct national security,” says Yanku.
Participants also noted China’s lead in the number of patent applications for AI systems in 2019 and 2020.
Most experts agreed that intellectual-property rights for AI models should be registered. However, the question of whether to grant authorship or ownership rights to the machines that generate the technologies remains contested.
In February, the USPTO rejected an application for the registration of the intellectual property rights to an artwork created by a machine-learning algorithm.
In June, an inventor sought through the courts to patent a painting generated by an AI model.
In the same month, Australian researchers urged the global community to legally recognise copyright in algorithms.
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