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Junghi Woo is an IPilogue Writer and a 3L JD Candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School.

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Artificial intelligence (ā€œAIā€) is always popping in and outside of our news feeds. A prime example is Teslaā€™s newly announced AI-powered robot, the Recently, AI technology once again exceeded the legal communityā€™s expectations by filing a patent for its invention of Why is this an issue? Under patent law, it is the general expectation that inventors are humans, not robots.

(ā€˜Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentienceā€™), an artificial neural system, and claimed that DABUS was the sole inventor of the patentable invention. Currently, from its filings in the U.S., Europe, Australia, and South Africa, . The main question for patent offices is: within patent law?

A Flexible Australian Approach

The Federal Court in Australia found that no provision expressly excludes AI from the definition of ā€œinventorā€, nor does the actual term require a human author. Resultantly, the court confirmed that it will take a flexible approach, aligning with the ā€™s objective which reads:

ā€œThe object of this Act is to provide a patent system in Australia that promotes economic wellbeing through technological innovation and the transfer and dissemination of technology. In doing so, the patent system balances over time the interests of producers, owners, and users of technology and the public.ā€

Interestingly, the court also , emphasizing that only humans can be capable of ownership, but inventorship only requires the capacity to invent, which AI arguably possesses.

Patent Law in Canada

Contrary to other jurisdictions where ā€œinventorā€ is legislatively defined, in Canada, the term ā€œinventorā€ is mentioned but not defined within the Patent Act. For example, under ā€œapplicantā€ is defined as ā€œ... an inventor and the legal representatives of an applicant or inventor.ā€ But, it does not define the term ā€œinventorā€ or specify whether an inventor must be human.

When defining this term, experts refer to (ā€œApotexā€). Here, the Supreme Court interpreted ā€œinventorā€ to mean ā€œthe person or persons who conceived ofā€ the invention. This approach favours a stricter interpretation and defines ā€œinventorā€ as a human individual.

However, the purpose of Canadaā€™s Patent Act aligns closely with Australiaā€™s Patents Act, which is to . In this sense, Canada could take a more flexible approach and follow the lead of our friends from across the pond. It can be further argued that Apotex did not focus on the issue of defining the term ā€œinventorā€, and the Supreme Court never considered or debated the possibility of AI inventing patentable inventions in 2002. Thus, one may say that this case does not truly address this issue, nor does it lead us to a clear conclusion of how Canada may treat such a patent filing.

Potential Benefits

Granting patents to AI ā€œinventorsā€ , and would align with the objective of promoting innovation. DABUS is a , which means it can participate in machine learning, processing, and critically analysing data. With such capabilities, food containers would only be the start of a novel line of inventions. Restrictive legislation may deter future innovations from being patented in Canada, and hinder our technological advancements as a society.

Risks

Unfortunately, expanding this definition could also afford companies more inventive liability loopholes. A similar example is that caused automotive fatalities. In these cases, Tesla has argued that despite AI involvement in the driving of such cars, the human driver solely determines the vehicleā€™s actions, Ģżso AI technologiesā€™ ease in collecting, storing, and analyzing data could also raise privacy concerns when looking at the inventive process more closely.

Additionally, there is no doubt that expanding this definition would confuse some areas of intellectual property law, and perhaps even other areas of law. It would take decades to adapt, interpret, and clarify what role AI will have on Canadian legislation and case law unless ĢżAI can someday predict this as well.

Whatever the decision is, AI seems like it is here to stay and will only continue to grow and advance. The only question left is whether Canada will warmly embrace this giant step of innovation, or stay back and observe.

The post Innovating the Term 'Inventor': AI and Patent Law appeared first on IPOsgoode.

What is the "Partnership on AI", and who are the Partners?

The ā€œPartnership on AIā€ is a not-for-profitĢżplatform to support best practices in the development of Artificial Intelligence.Ģż, , , and are the founding partners. These companies are industry leaders in the development of artificial intelligence, drones, and enterprise technologies.

±õµž²Ńā€™s Watson AI in recent years for its ability to research and compile relevant information at super-human speeds. Watson has the potential to fundamentally change the nature of industries reliant on intelligent research. DeepMind, Googleā€™s AI development office, when its ā€œlearningā€ AI was able to beat world champions at the ancient logic gameĢżGo. The scale of processing needed to calculate moves in Go is astronomically greater than that in chess, marking a distinct shift in the capabilities of computing since IBM's .

Why should we be concerned about AI?

These computers are examples of how computing is already capable of information processing exceeding that of humans, in some areas. Sam Harris' TED Talk argued ā€œif intelligence is just a matter of information processing, and we continue to improve our machines, we will produce some form of superintelligence.ā€ At the same time, he argued, we have so little understanding of how to constrain such an intelligence and ā€œwe have no idea how long it will take usā€ to determine that.

We should be afraid of this paradigm. Artificial intelligence, if incorrectly implemented, .ĢżThe extreme example Harris offered was that ā€œa few trillionairesā€, benefitting from the exponentially improved productivity of AI, ā€œcould grace the covers of our business magazines while the rest of the world would be free to starveā€, as the result of AI eroding jobs and networks of economic exchange. The fear in this example is not that artificial intelligence would become malevolentā€”as has proposed it mayā€”but, instead, that it would be so much more intelligent and capable than humans, and, by relative measure, Ģżintellectually, we would be to it what ants are to us.

What does the Partnership propose to do about this?

The and of the Partnership on AI respond to some of Harrisā€™ concerns. The organization states its mission is to ensure the maintenance of, ā€œethics, fairness, inclusivity, transparency and interoperability, and privacyā€ in the development of artificial intelligence.

The organization intends to bring together experts from a broad range of fields to respond to the implications of AI in relation to economics, social science, finance, public policy, and law.

The organizationā€™s tenets include: ā€œto ensure that AI technologies benefit and empower as many people as possibleā€; ā€œmaximize the benefits and address the potential challenges of AI technologiesā€; and, ā€œworking to ensure that AI research and engineering communities remain socially responsible, sensitive, and engaged directly with the potential influences of AI technologies on wider societyā€ā€”these suggest that this organization understands and empathizes with the concerns of Harris and others, related to AI.

What does this mean?

It remains to be seen if this organization and the oversights it vows to provide will prove sufficient to mitigate the potential threats and issues raised by Harris. Concerns are already being raised related to the and Elon Musk (of , , ) from the agreement.

“”±č±č±ō±šā€™s Siri personal assistant and Tesla Motorsā€™ cars are two of the highest-profile artificial intelligence applications on the market. Both companies stand poised to play a major role in the development of AI. It remains possible that these companies could join the ā€œPartnershipā€, however, both Apple and Musk are known for their history of independence in the tech market. If these developers choose to remain independent, this could seriously undermine the authority of the "Partnership" and affect the ability for the AI development 'industry' to self-regulate.

It is also worthwhile to consider that the "Partnership" is rooted only in American businesses, which presents problems insofar that it does not adequately account for the emergence of new AI developersĢżin countries outside of the United States - China, or India, for example. As well, in an extreme case, the centralization of such AI development singularly in the United States could contribute to Cold War-esque tensions, which Harris warned his audience during his talk.

The Manhattan Project for AI?

Harris' Manhattan Project analogy is significant. The Manhattan Project brought together many of the world's greatest scientists and mathematicians to construct the atomic bomb, all with the purpose of ensuring that power did not fall in to the wrong hands - Nazi Germany - during the Second World War. For its intents and purposes, the project succeeded. The bomb was built and it was used to end the war. However, as history proved,Ģżdespite the positive intentions of the project, it ultimately contributed to further evils as the impetus for the beginning of the Cold War. Albert Einstein, who , later regretted the creation of the device.

If AI were to go the way of the atomic bomb, that is, result in disastrous consequences despite our best efforts to regulate it, this author believes that fact should be cause for concern. While the functionality of AI remains in question as developers continue to seek greater and greater cognition from their machines, this may be, as Harris argued, a critical point in our history.

Christopher McGoey is an IPilogue Editor and a JD Candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School.

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