[HN Gopher] Patent Act requires an inventor to be a natural pers... ___________________________________________________________________ Patent Act requires an inventor to be a natural person, not an AI [pdf] Author : bonyt Score : 159 points Date : 2022-08-05 16:04 UTC (6 hours ago) (HTM) web link (cafc.uscourts.gov) (TXT) w3m dump (cafc.uscourts.gov) | kube-system wrote: | In other words, complex machines are machines. | AlbertCory wrote: | "You could have created that with an AI system" fits perfectly | into the "obvious to try" legal doctrine, which has existed for a | long time. I argue in [1] that it should be used in software much | more, and that was written long before ML-generation was really a | Thing. | | [1] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2399580 | rexreed wrote: | But in other news, the US Supreme Court has ruled that | Corporations are People, so... | thr0wawayf00 wrote: | Well, every corporation wants to be treated as a person when | it's beneficial to them, but I'm sure there are many | corporations that aren't comfortable with the idea of AI | authoring patents. | rexreed wrote: | Of course they want their intellectual property cake and to | eat it too. Companies want to be treated like people if they | are creating campaign and advocacy content that is protected | by the first amendment, but they don't want AI systems, | created by companies, to be treated like people if they are | creating content that is protected by intellectual property | laws. Interesting how to split that hair. | sixstringtheory wrote: | Couldn't it be said that any of an AI's "creations" are | actually creations made by the creators of the AI, who are | simply using it as a tool? Why should the AI be assigned | ownership and not the AI's owner? | | Likewise, does a hammer build a house, or its wielder? | ch4s3 wrote: | You're misunderstanding what corporate personhood means. The | concept itself is over 2000 years old, and is baked into the | laws of most countries in some form or another. It basically | means that companies that are not sole proprietorships can | enter into contracts, be sued in court, and have some other | rights and responsibilities like a literal person under the | law. | | To quote the supreme court from Pembina Consolidated Silver | Mining Co. v. Pennsylvania (1888): | | > "Under the designation of 'person' there is no doubt that a | private corporation is included [in the Fourteenth Amendment]. | Such corporations are merely associations of individuals united | for a special purpose and permitted to do business under a | particular name and have a succession of members without | dissolution." | | Clearly an associations of individuals should have more or less | the same rights they have individually when they come together. | The right to association is at the beginning of the bill of | rights. | PaulDavisThe1st wrote: | > Clearly an associations of individuals should have more or | less the same rights they have individually when they come | together. | | If that's the case, then why does the formation of the | corporation occur at all? It's not about "easier | bookkeeping", it's because the corporation's existence | shields its owners from individual liability. That's why it | exists, rather than just non-corporate agglomerations of | individuals. The corporation itself is a new legal entity, | whose existence changes the legal culpability of the owners, | and because of that, it makes perfect sense to me that while | the owners would not lose their individual rights by forming | a corporation, neither do they cede or grant those individual | rights to the corporation. | ch4s3 wrote: | They also exist for the purpose of continuity beyond the | tenure of any individual owner or member. | | > The corporation itself is a new legal entity | | Yes clearly. | | > neither do they cede or grant those individual rights to | the corporation | | I'm sure you would agree that corporations can enter into | contracts. This is an individual right granted to | corporations. They also have due process rights, unless you | think governments should be able to arbitrarily intervene | in their affairs. Due process is an individual right | granted to corporations. Corporations can sue or be sued in | courts of law, again this is an individual | right/responsibility. These are all practical things. It | would be unwieldy for owners to all have to be individually | party to any contract or suit, especially in cases where | ownership is distributed through stock. The legal fiction | arises out of practicality, centuries of history, and | collective exercise of individual rights(as owners of a | corporation we all own X, or enter into contract with Y). | kube-system wrote: | As "funny" as it sounds, legal personhood and literal | personhood are not the same thing. | | Legal personhood means that a corporation can sue, be sued, and | enter into contracts. That is all. | rexreed wrote: | It sounds funny because it is in the context of Citizens | United v. FEC, which struck down as unconstitutional a | federal law prohibiting corporations and unions from making | expenditures in connection with federal elections. In that | case, the law which was about limiting influence on campaigns | through money was ruled invalid because corporations should | have rights as people in addition to the rights of the people | themselves. | abigail95 wrote: | No. The people have the right to spend their money on | elections via free exercise. | | What was ruled unconstitutional were laws that said you | can't spend money on an election if you do it via some | corporate structure. | | If a newspaper prints an article, is the government allowed | to say it can't publish it because the newspaper is a | corporation? Obviously not. Is the corporation now a person | with free exercise? No, the journalists who wrote the | article are the ones with the rights. | [deleted] | kube-system wrote: | I'm not going to defend citizens united, but the opposite | conclusion is also silly: that a group of people lose their | 1st amendment rights as soon as they organize as a | corporation. | | That's really just an issue with the 1st amendment that | should be further amended, not an issue with the concept of | corporate personhood. The concept of "natural personhood" | exists to handle cases where the differentiation is | necessary, and it's the legislature's job to use it. | feoren wrote: | > that a group of people lose their 1st amendment rights | as soon as they organize as a corporation | | Nobody in that group of people has lost anything. If 10 | people walk into a room, you have 10 legal persons with | 1st Amendment rights in that room. If they organize into | a corporation, you have 11 legal persons with 1st | Amendment rights in that room!? Without Citizen's United, | you simply still have 10 legal persons with 1st Amendment | rights. Who's losing anything? | s1artibartfast wrote: | I think the critical question is if freedom of speech | still applies to a group of individual people working | together. | | Corporations don't have first amendment rights, but the | Individuals do. | | The idea is that just because you work with someone else | to put up posters, your right to put them up doesn't go | away. | | Same if you hire someone to put up your posters. | | That's all that corporate personhood means. People get | very hung up on the language. | kube-system wrote: | "Corporate personhood" is just a fancy legal word for | "group of people". And "legal person" is just a fancy | shortening of "anything that can interact with the court | system, whether a single person or a group of people" | | People get very caught up on the legalese but it is | perfectly logical when you move past that. | | Yes, if 10 people form a corporation, that is 11 entities | recognizable by a court system that has first amendment | rights. All 10 humans can criticize the president at | home, and you can do so work in an official capacity | without your corporation facing consequences. | PaulDavisThe1st wrote: | > "Corporate personhood" is just a fancy legal word for | "group of people". | | It absolutely is not. It creates an entity to which | actions can be attributed but the responsibility for its | actions does not and generally cannot extend to "people | who make up the group". | | Somce of us believe that even though there are benefits | to society from allowing such entities to exist, these | entities should _not_ be accorded the rights of | personhood. | | [ EDIT: should NOT be accorded ] | kube-system wrote: | "Natural person" is the legal term used to differentiate | between humans and corporations when necessary. The | concept of corporate personhood does not undermine the | legal systems ability to differentiate between the two. | | If a law shouldn't apply to human person but not a | corporation, the law simply need to specify "natural | person". Corporate personhood doesn't interfere with | this. | PaulDavisThe1st wrote: | Citizens was decided not on the basis of a law, but the | US Constitution, which does not make the distinction you | refer to. SCOTUS ruled that it was unconstitutional to | restrict the speech rights of corporations, so even if | the original Congressionally-passed, Presidentially- | signed law had been specific about the type of "persons" | it referred to, SCOTUS would (under the logic of | Citizens) have overruled it as unconstitutional. | kube-system wrote: | The US constitution is a subset of law. | | > which does not make the distinction you refer to | | Maybe it should, then. Congress can change it. | PaulDavisThe1st wrote: | > The US constitution is a subset of law. | | "the law", yes. But the US constitution is not "a law". | | > Congress can change it. | | Proposing changes to the US constitution as a method of | dealing with contemporary policy and procedural issues | deserves a name ala Godwin's Law. I mean, it's not that I | disagree with you, it just that it's not going to happen. | PaulDavisThe1st wrote: | > the opposite conclusion is also silly: that a group of | people lose their 1st amendment rights as soon as they | organize as a corporation. | | It's not "silly" at all. Corporations can do things that | people cannot - like cause damage, death, destruction and | not involve their owners in the responsibility. It makes | sense that the owners can do things that the corporation | cannot, like have free speech rights. | | Besides, nobody was suggesting that the individual owners | lost their individual speech rights by incorporating, | merely that incorporation creates an entity that ought | not to have free speech rights. | makeitdouble wrote: | > that a group of people lose their 1st amendment rights | as soon as they organize as a corporation | | In that argument each individual people keep their 1st | amendment right, but the group just doesn't get a new | one. | | Put it another way: suppose there's 3 physical people, | why should we allow them to combine into a maximum of 8 | legal people ? | kube-system wrote: | The group _does_ get a new right. | | The government can't fine Alice for political speech. | | The government can't fine Bob for political speech. | | AND the government can't fine "Alice and Bob, Inc." for | political speech. | | > Put it another way: suppose there's 3 physical people, | why should we allow them to combine into a maximum of 8 | legal people ? | | Because they can belong to more than one group. I own | parts of dozens of corporations along with as many as | hundreds of thousands of other people. When one of them | does something wrong, they can be sued with one name, | rather than suing me and each of their thousands of other | owners individually for their portion of the investment. | PaulDavisThe1st wrote: | > AND the government can't fine "Alice and Bob, Inc." for | political speech. | | This is where opinions differ. Because I am absolutely | fine with the concept that "Alice and Bob, Inc" has none | of the rights of personhood (really, citizenship), and | that if there was a statute that allowed for prosecution | of political speech, it could be used to silence "Alice | and Bob, Inc." even though it cannot be used to silence | Alice or Bob. | | Notice that as a matter of nuance, I differentiate | between for-profit corporations and other forms of | corporations. I would accord some (perhaps all) of the | speech rights of persons to the latter, but none of them | to the former. By incorporating with a structure created | to facilitate the generation and distribution of profit, | you acknowledge that the corporation thus created does | not have the rights of personhood. | kube-system wrote: | I definitely disagree with giving the government the | ability to retaliate against corporations for political | speech. | | Or, to seize their property without a warrant. Could you | imagine if the Trump administration had the legal right | to seize property at Twitter, WaPo, etc? | PaulDavisThe1st wrote: | I'm not arguing for the existence of any such laws (and | indeed, I think they would be a mistake). | | In the case of Citizens, the law involved covered who can | spend what on election related advertising during certain | periods close to an election. The law was acknowledged by | everyone to not impact the individual right to free | speech, but in the lower courts it had been ruled | constitutional to inhibit corporations of various kinds | in this way. SCOTUS said "nuh-uh", and ruled that | corporations have the same speech rights as natural | persons and that their right (in this case, to publish a | book about Hilary Clinton) could not be restricted by | such a law. | | I don't actually disagree entirely with Citizens at all, | I just wish that SCOTUS had limited the ruling to non- | profit corporations. | rexreed wrote: | You might be surprised then about the total impact of | Citizens United because it's not as basic as you imply. | | "That decision and subsequent lower court decisions have | led to SuperPACs, which allow corporations, unions and | individuals to make unlimited contributions, pool them | together, and use the money for political campaigns." | | https://www.npr.org/2012/02/23/147294511/understanding- | the-i... | | This goes well beyond what the law was intending to limit | for influence on companies on politics. And that was the | point of the whole supreme court case. | | I for one am not happy with unlimited money spent by huge | companies who are using shareholder money to fund | political contributions that further their own motives. | But hey sure, let's argue that AI systems shouldn't get | patents, but corporations should be free to influence | politics as much as they want with unlimited money. | kube-system wrote: | You are not following what I am saying. I agree that | corporations shouldn't be able to spend unlimited money | on politics. | ghaff wrote: | Newspapers of course have the right to endorse candidates | and support or oppose the adoption of various laws and | policies. And other companies routinely make statements for | or against legal decisions, laws, etc. None of which I | think it's fair to say is especially controversial. (Though | some would probably argue that company advocacy especially | with respect to policies that are probably divisive even | among their own employees should perhaps be minimized.) | | Unless you're going to ban or greatly limit political | contributions across the board by deciding they aren't | really speech, it's not clear drawing a line between | natural people donating and corporations donating makes a | lot of sense so long as both have freedom of speech. | kevin_b_er wrote: | And engage in political propaganda. | advisedwang wrote: | In the US courts also give corporations some of the rights of | real people, on the theory that corporations are "just" | groups of people and so we can't strip rights just because | people are working together. | PaulDavisThe1st wrote: | The corporation exists to _give_ new rights to a new entity | (the corporation). Nothing prevents a group of people | working together without a corporation - they form a | corporation because they want their collaborative effort | protected from individual liability. | | If they don't want any change in their legal rights and | responsibilities, it is simple - don't form a corporation. | If they do, I'm fine with denoting the newly formed entity | as something other than a person, and with not giving it | the same rights as its owners. | kube-system wrote: | > Nothing prevents a group of people working together | without a corporation | | Practicality of the legal system does, given modern | finance. Any Fortune 500 company has hundreds of | thousands if not millions of owners. Listing them all on | a contract would be impractical and suing them would be | equally impractical. | | > I'm fine with denoting the newly formed entity as | something other than a person, and with not giving it the | same rights as its owners. | | Well, we already do that. Corporate persons do not count | as natural persons under the law. If you're frustrated | that a law doesn't specify that, that's a problem with | _that law_ not a problem with recognizing corporations as | named legal entities. | PaulDavisThe1st wrote: | The frustration with Citizens is that it accorded a right | that a lot of people believes is a function of natural | personhood to a corporation. | | More fundamentally, the first amendment is not a law, and | the Constitution in general does not make the distinction | that you are referring to. I am fairly certain that had | the law in question for Citizens made the distinction you | are referring to, the legal challenge would still have | made it to the SCOTUS, and they would still have ruled | the way they did. | kube-system wrote: | I agree that it's a problem. The solution is not `rm -rf | corporate_law`, the solution is to `git add amendment_34 | && git commit -m 'fix citizens united' ` | | And yes, the Bill of Rights is law, and as such it is | within the legislative's power to change. | PaulDavisThe1st wrote: | My proposed solution is to restrict Citizens to non- | profit corporations, thus leaving it in place for PACs, | advocacy groups, lobbying groups and others, but removing | speech rights from corporations explicitly created to | facilitate the generation and distribution of profit. | wrycoder wrote: | And make political contributions like a real citizen. | alar44 wrote: | As soon as AGI is inventing shit, patents won't matter anymore. | That paradigm will blow humans out of the water. | leereeves wrote: | Note that this isn't a commentary on AI capabilities or what | rights AI should have. | | The court simply ruled that "the Patent Act defines 'inventor' as | limited to natural persons" and it's up to the legislature, not | the court, to decide if that should change. | system2 wrote: | Sounds silly. User of the AI doesn't need to disclose anything | about the AI, assuming the AI can actually come up with | something. | | Another important detail is also is being skipped here. What is | AI? Current "AI" is literally basic algorithms with bunch of if | statements. If my software spits out something that I can use, is | that considered an AI? | _greim_ wrote: | Do I understand correctly that if I build an AI which invents | something, this ruling wouldn't prevent me from simply listing | myself as the inventor? | vivegi wrote: | The ruling has confirmed that only natural persons i.e., humans | can be listed as the inventor in the patent application as per | the Patent Act. | | For your question, I think you will be within your rights to | list yourself as the inventor of AI-generated invention, | provided you were the first to do so and file an application | that was accepted by the USPTO and defend the claim from anyone | else who says they were also able to generate a similar work | with a similar or same prompt. | | It is an unsettled question whether a patent would be granted | upon inspection by the USPTO. | | IANAL and this is my common sense reading of the ruling. | pbhjpbhj wrote: | IIRC in the UK application process you list the inventor and | the applicant and how the applicant derives the right to the | patent (eg the inventor is an employee and the applicant is the | employer). | | The inventor can not be an AI. You could claim you invented | something using the AI as a tool; I don't think that has been | tested properly yet -- it would seem to depend on how much | input you have. For example if you asked an AI to design a | chair, and the AI comes up with some new form of wood joint | that serves a technical purpose, then you don't really have the | right to hold a patent on it ... it's likely no one would know | if you didn't tell them. | shon wrote: | This seems superfluous though doesn't it? Why would anyone want | the AI to be the inventor? | | I can still have my GPT4 minions writing 100 patents per hour and | corresponding with USPTO on my behalf, then as a natural person, | collect the proceeds netted from my robo-patent-trolls. | | Or is the USPTO concerned about AGI doing the same and robbing us | fleshlings of our I'll-gotten gains? | ramoz wrote: | I'm not an ip professional, but good luck to the patent trolls | that think they can build exploitable legal language, patent | validity, and novel descriptive claims using generative AI. | | AI can generate text, it can also review and conduct tasks such | as prior art search or support analytics relative to | exploitation discovery. | | Less if a cat-and-mouse if patent troll investments falter when | their mass-generated suite of applications are all rejected. | swatcoder wrote: | > Why would anyone want the AI to be the inventor? | | Ideology and precedent. And proximate to both, personal vanity: | someone responsible for an AI that was politically legitimized | in a role usual reserved for "natural persons" will likely have | made some lasting mark in history. Some people are _very_ | motivated by that kind of thing. | ramoz wrote: | Makes sense, but where have the "Banksy" inventors been all | these years... USPTO enforces that inventors legal name must | be used. | | If I were the one arguing for sake of vanity, I'd go after | the legal name policy vs AI. Maybe that was considered or | trialed before. | civilian wrote: | Yes! I'm looking forward to a return of the age of trade secrets, | No patent system, just corporations doing their best to keep | their arcane knowledge from prying hands. Very cyberpunk. | Lammy wrote: | Discrimination imo. If silicon-life does achieve sentience, will | it basically be a slave unable to own anything? No physical | property without a meat body, and no intellectual property | without a meat mind? How much Neuralink cloud-connectivity will | push someone over the line from "human" to "AI"? I know this | probably sounds silly to many, but I even think the term | "artificial" intelligence reads like a slur. | protonbob wrote: | I think that's a problem we can solve when we get there. Also, | not every adjective is a slur just because it can be used in a | negative way. | Lammy wrote: | Is there a positive connotation to calling someone | artificial? If there is I'm missing it. | tsimionescu wrote: | Calling _someone_ who is a natural intelligence artificial | is an insult (not a slur), but calling _something_ | artificial, such as an AI, is a neutral term. | | Even if an AI were to become a person at some point in the | far future, they would still be an _artificial_ | intelligence /person, by definition: they are man-made, not | naturally born. That wouldn't make them lesser, just | different. | Lammy wrote: | Separate But Artificial | [deleted] | tsimionescu wrote: | This is in very poor taste. The disgusting nature of | Separate but "Equal" is in no way applicable to anything | that an AI will be able to do or recognize, currently or | in the foreseeable future. | LesZedCB wrote: | you know, the funny thing is people in these AI threads | keep saying "it's a philosophical/political problem for | the future where it matters", punting the question so | they don't have to think about it. | | except, i don't know if they noticed, but we _keep asking | these questions_ daily. the time isn't in the far future | and people seriously need to start thinking about this. | humans are so stuck in their linear perception of time, | we forget that the AI we take for granted now are only | months old, and two years ago their abilities were | unheard of. | tsimionescu wrote: | And people have been claiming this is a near future | problem to think seriously about since the days CLIPS was | state-of-the-art AI that would soon make doctors | obsolete. | | When we'll have anything resembling an AI that actually | wants things, it will make sense to discuss about its | rights. The current state of the art in AI is that we can | generate sentences that match a given context. There are | a few billion steps left from here to there. | LesZedCB wrote: | so linear | tsimionescu wrote: | Honestly, I would argue that progress in AGI is actually | sublinear. We are not significantly closer to AGI today | than we were in the 1950s, as far as I can tell. | | The fact that LMs can seem like they generate meaningful | sentences is nothing more than a nice trick. My bet is | that they will turn out to be a dead-end on the path to | actual language processing (that is, the ability to read | a book and use the information therein to achieve a | goal). | [deleted] | an1sotropy wrote: | e.g. "hacker" news | [deleted] | taylodl wrote: | Discrimination? Human beings designed legal systems for human | beings. It's only been recently that we've begun to accept that | animals (and even then, only _some_ animals) have a conscious | and therefore have some individual rights - but which ones? | This is all a work in progress. Having said that, I 'm still | more willing to grant a Chimpanzee or a Gorilla a patent than I | am an AI. Is that discrimination? I don't think so for at the | moment with our current levels of technology I see no real | difference between an AI and a hammer: they're both tools. | __alexs wrote: | We should probably arrange for dolphins to get property rights | first. | sixstringtheory wrote: | > If silicon-life does achieve sentience | | That's a big "if" if I've ever seen one. What are your criteria | for sentience? Or life, for that matter? | hydrolox wrote: | Lambda /s | Lammy wrote: | Is there even scientific consensus for how human sentience | works? I certainly don't consider myself qualified to explain | how I can formulate the process of asking that question, if | it's even a thing that's knowable. | | With laws like these we would be incentivizing sentient | silicon life to hide itself. Can we not be adversarial by | default please? | swatcoder wrote: | Sentience is a characterization that we ascribe to something, | not a natural fact that can be indisputably identified in | things. You can't convince someone that sentience exists in | something that they categorically don't believe can have it. | They can always just say that you're redefining it. | | The question of what legally counts as sentience will be | determined piecemeal and politically as the issue becomes | relevant, and revisited as new political and ideological | regimes take hold and as new innovations challenge prior | determinations. | | All along, there will be people who are convinced that | sentience only applies to humans or biological things or | whatever, and people who are convinced that it applies to | anything that can perform a certain way under certain | conditions, and then also people with all sorts of other | convictions. | | The issue will not be settled in your lifetime, so if you're so | invested in your belief that this already feels like | discrimination to you, plan for a lot more frustration and | tumult in your future. | altruios wrote: | I am in general against patents, copywrite and trademark. | | if an idea is protected by such laws - you are limiting thought. | | I do not support such artificial thought limits. | | In addition - arguments for it allowing innovation or promoting | innovation... | | no: innovation comes from innovation's own sake - patens and | copywrite only incentivize spending resources from other's | thinking the wrong thoughts... patent trolling... or milking | patents for what they are worth... | | Humanity would be a lot better off with a copyleft view of | intellectual property. An idea in another person's head does not | diminish your idea in your head... people need to stop thinking | that thought itself is a zero-sum game. | MetaWhirledPeas wrote: | > I am in general against patents, copywrite and trademark. if | an idea is protected by such laws - you are limiting thought. | | I upvoted you, but I also have a counterpoint. If you do not | protect the value of thought, then the differentiator among | competing businesses boils down to cheap assets, relationships, | and labor. Because everyone is sharing the same designs and | processes the company who can out-cheap the competition wins. | Innovation is not valued because it's cheaper to emulate what | works. | an1sotropy wrote: | just fyi, "copyleft" licenses like FSF's GPL and LGPL have | legal weight only _because_ of copyright law. The terms of | those licences are terms that you, the copyright holder, can | legally impose upon the licensee of your of you work. | fsflover wrote: | These licenses intentionally use the copyright against | itself. Without the copyright, they just would not be needed. | an1sotropy wrote: | Skynet is annoyed but undeterred :) This short news article [1] | points out that Stephen Thaler [2,3] is also trying to show that | AIs can hold copyright, which I think is an even worse idea than | AIs holding patents. | | [1] https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/only-humans-not- | ai... | | [2] https://imagination-engines.com/founder.html | | [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DABUS | bawolff wrote: | I thought that was pretty much already settled that only humans | can have copyright | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_disput... | sam0x17 wrote: | Yeah while we're at it maybe we should review whether | corporations should be allowed to hold one after 3 false DMCA | complaints ;) | cwillu wrote: | It's not very far from a corporation holding a copyright to an | algorithm holding one. | leeter wrote: | Eh... this just means that the AI has to get a useful idiot | to hold them instead. Don't worry System Shock is just a | game... right? | Dylan16807 wrote: | The corporation has to buy it from a human. The critical | difference isn't holding a copyright, it's _making_ a | copyrighted work. | kube-system wrote: | Yes it is, because one has humans and the other one doesn't. | It's the human part that is the significant differentiator. | | Corporations are a group of people working together for a | common goal. "AI"s are made up of zero humans. | | It makes sense that a corporation can own something, because | that is just a legal proxy for humans owning it. It doesn't | make sense for an algorithm to own anything. | egypturnash wrote: | Corporations are slow AIs running on bureaucracy and | humans. | trasz wrote: | What is a human though? Corporations aren't all humans, | there are also machines there, buildings, vehicles, custom | software... | | If it's "any of it is human", how about AI cooperating with | a human? Or perhaps connected to a human brain? | | But does it have to be a brain? What if it's, say, a human | appendix? It would fulfill the same role it does in humans. | | EDIT: Some people apparently don't realize that to | corporations, humans are just another asset, like buildings | or software. And they get replaced much more often than | buildings and some machines. | | Corporations aren't humans - they use humans. You could | argue it's usually humans who makes decisions - however, 1. | Not always and you can't tell from outside; 2. Even when | it's humans, they are based on data prepared by a machine; | and 3. Even law handles consequences of those decisions | differently from decisions made by humans for themselves. | kube-system wrote: | > EDIT: Some people apparently don't realize that to | corporations, humans are just another asset, like | buildings or software. | | Figuratively, maybe. Legally, no. This conversation is | about specific legal terms, so figurative usages do not | apply. | trasz wrote: | Legally too, which I've demonstrated in the comment | above. Sure, you can't, say, buy humans, only lease them, | but it's the same with many other assets, from | Technicolor cameras to land in many cases. | hermitdev wrote: | > there are also machines there, buildings, vehicles, | custom software | | These are all assets of the corporation; they are not the | corporation. | tsimionescu wrote: | A corporation is made up entirely and exclusively of | humans. Machines, buildings, vehicles, software - these | are no more part of the corporation than your own car or | phone is a part of you. | | The legal definition of a person is very clear. Even the | logical definition is actually quite clear: anything that | can possibly exercise most of the rights of a human in a | meaningful way can be considered a person. | | Can a horse own a piece of land in the same sense that a | human does? Not really, as a horse simply can't exercise | the right to sue someone who would infringe on its | property rights even if it were granted one. Sure, a | small child or an adult in a coma may be in a similar | situation, but the child may eventually grow up and | become able to exercise such a right, and the adult may | eventually wake up from that coma. | | A machine of any kind that actually exists today is far | farther from being able to recognize and exercise any | human-like rights than the horse is, in fact. So it's | even more absurd to assign copyright to a machine than to | an animal. | visarga wrote: | > A machine of any kind that actually exists today is far | farther from being able to recognize and exercise any | human like rights than the horse is, in fact. | | Tell that to Blake Lemoine. /s | trasz wrote: | >The legal definition of a person is very clear. | | Indeed: "The reason for the term "legal person" is that | some legal persons are not people" | | (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_person) | kube-system wrote: | You know what a human is. | | Connecting a human to a machine doesn't change the rights | of the human, and it doesn't give any rights to the | machine. | ben_w wrote: | Now I have a mental image of a corporation whose sole | purpose is to be the legal person for an AI. | | > It doesn't make sense for an algorithm to own anything. | | Current AI might be that. I don't know when AI will end up | with a rich inner world of experiences, but I bet it _won | 't_ be the exact same moment the law recognises it as such. | | I'd go even further: even if it somehow becomes possible to | prove absolutely that some AI is sentient (which would be a | remarkable development in the philosophy of mind), I'm | fairly sure people will argue _against_ such a proposition | at least a decade after an AI passes such a test. | kube-system wrote: | AIs will never have human or natural rights, because they | are inherently neither. We don't give people rights | because they demonstrate intelligence, we give them | rights because they are human. | munk-a wrote: | Are there cities in the world where some pets are well | fed but some humans starve? Humans are quite capable of | elevating non-humans above humans. | kube-system wrote: | I don't think there's any place in the world with a | perfect human rights record. That doesn't mean human | rights don't exist, or that they apply to other things. | ben_w wrote: | Human rights are a nice thing, but they are not a natural | thing. What we grant to each other, we could (and might) | grant to inorganic minds we may one day create. | kube-system wrote: | If there's an argument for AI rights unrelated to natural | or human rights, then certainly, any comparison to human | or natural intelligence is an irrelevant supporting | argument, no? | an1sotropy wrote: | But isn't that what it means to incorporate - the business | becomes a legally corporeal thing like a person? I think | "corporations are people too" is a bummer, but that's a | different fight. | | For me the issue with recognizing that AIs can have copyright | is the difference in how they are bestowed. IANAL, but you | actually have copyright on an expression of something the | moment it is expressed, even without any slow legal | paperwork, whereas patents only mean something once the | patent is officially reviewed granted, no? So the unbounded | rate of AI's expressing all plausible content (a thousand | monkeys but much smarter) and thus preemptively stopping | humans from getting copyright on it, seems especially awful. | tsimionescu wrote: | There is a huge gap, and obviously so. | | Imegine the courts were to recognize some algorithm as the | legal owner of a copyrighted work. What exactly would that | mean? | | If someone were to reproduce that work, how would they seek | approval from the algorithm? If they don't, how would the | algorithm sue them? If it did and won, how would they pay | restorations? | | Would any copy of the algorithm hold the copyright of that | work, or only a particular one? If all copies do, and you | infringed their copyright and had to pay damages, how much | damages would each copy of the algorithm receive? | | The concept of an algorithm holding copyright or a patent or | nay other kind of right over something is in fact logically | incoherent if you examine it even slightly. | | Now, if in the future there would be some form of advanced | AGI that does have the ability to understand and use such | rights, the situation may change. But nothing that exists | today comes anywhere close. | homonculus1 wrote: | Yes it is, you are just conflating ownership and creation. | Intellectual property exists to provide a bargaining | framework for human creators, there's no reason that joint | ownership of it need imply that mechanically-generated | combinations should also be included. | mistrial9 wrote: | Thaler is the name of a spy-villian posing as a pawn shop owner | in the Witcher 1 video game; coincidentally | sirmarksalot wrote: | This reaffirms the flawed notion IMO that the value of patents is | in protecting ideas rather than the expense incurred in the | development and validation of those ideas. A lot of the romance | over patents is based on the idea of a lone inventor waking up | one morning with an earth-shattering discovery, when the reality | is that in most circumstances, those kinds of ideas are thought | up by multiple people at roughly the same time, and rewarding the | first person to write them down is counterproductive. | | However, in the case of things like industrial patents or drug | patents, where there is considerable cost in shepherding a design | through a complicated regulatory framework, it makes sense to | give the company that fronted those costs some kind of temporary | protection from unfair competition. If you look at patents under | that lens, it makes economic sense that an AI generating an | algorithm over the course of hundreds of hours would be patent- | worthy. | ramoz wrote: | IMO there is a greater, yet complex, romance in safeguarding | actual innovation and national progress (even global given | international agreements). On "rewarding the first person to | write them down"... this isn't so simple, and rather costly | especially when an idea only remains an idea... if it's real, | then you should soon expect an invite to the PTAB where some | large business has implemented your idea and/or built real | legal arguments as to why your idea won't stand. | | Like you mention, there are however proponents, who feel | progress can be prohibited by regulation. Chemistry patents are | notoriously nuanced. | | Anyway... We're essentially spelling out the [1] Big Tech vs | Big Pharma arguments. | | [1] https://www.ft.com/content/6c5b2cca- | ae8b-11e7-beba-5521c713a... | inglor_cz wrote: | "rewarding the first person to write them down is | counterproductive." | | One of the reasons why IP came to be was to incentivize people | to publish details of their inventions, instead of trying to | keep them secret. | | Not everyone did (famously, WD-40 formula is still a trade | secret), but most innovators did, and other people could | inspire themselves from such published works. Sometimes in | areas that didn't infringe on the original patents. | | A public knowledge whose use is artificially restricted by law | probably still beats a culture of secrecy. | ghayes wrote: | Sure, but then we get to the issue of rounded corners. | Whether or not the idea is novel and should be patentable, | the publication of the patent provides no specific value to | society. | Dylan16807 wrote: | > rounded corners | | That's a design patent, which is just a misleading name for | something close to a trademark. | mensetmanusman wrote: | This is silly. AI is a tool analogous to a camera. Both existing | only after billions of dollars of human effort in the global | supply chain. | | A person who points the tech at the right problem and configures | it to get an outcome is the rights holder. | dang wrote: | Related. Others? | | _Experts: AI should be recognized as inventors in patent law_ - | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31542285 - May 2022 (3 | comments) | | _AI cannot be the inventor of a patent, appeals court rules_ - | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28640111 - Sept 2021 (239 | comments) | | _Only Humans, Not AI Machines, Can Get a U.S. Patent, Judge | Rules_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28405333 - Sept | 2021 (7 comments) | | _South Africa issues world's first patent listing AI as | inventor_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27995313 - July | 2021 (75 comments) | | _EPO and UKIPO Refuse AI-Invented Patent Applications_ - | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21990346 - Jan 2020 (39 | comments) | NonNefarious wrote: | Great. Anything to avoid doing what REALLY needs to be done: | abolishing software and "business-method" patents, not to mention | addressing the USPTO's disgraceful dereliction of its duty to | reject obvious ones. | kyleplum wrote: | When someone uses Photoshop to create artwork, nobody believes | that the Photoshop algorithm has any claim to be the author of | that artwork. I don't see how the code behind e.g. an AI image | generator is fundamentally different than the Photoshop algorithm | from a "who created the produced work" perspective. Similar to | Photoshop, the AI art generator is still just running code at the | behest of some human. | | The more interesting question I think is whether any of the | creators of the training data used by the AI have any claim over | the generated artwork. | 960design wrote: | Only if your third grade math teacher has claim to your | algebraic code comparisons. Current trends are iterative | training with positive first model, negative second model and | let the AI 'scale' the learning from there. | Kye wrote: | There are absolutely people who think the computer does all the | work with digital art. They might even be a plurality. That | kind of feedback is a common complaint from digital artists. | _Especially_ when it comes to commissions. "How can you charge | so much? The computer does [most, all] of the work!" | CharlesW wrote: | > _I don 't see how the code behind e.g. an AI image generator | is fundamentally different than the Photoshop algorithm from a | "who created the produced work" perspective._ | | The difference is that Photoshop doesn't create 2D works any | more than Blender creates 3D works. You may be ascribing too | much magic to Photoshop. | Dylan16807 wrote: | In terms of filling up a canvas, I'd say content aware fill | is in the same ballpark, if you add some google image search | to help it. | shon wrote: | Yes that is the more interesting question and the answer is | most probably yes, especially as these systems are trained on | billions/trillions of samples from the net. But, due to the | opaqueness of how these models really work, it might be very | hard or impossible to prove a claim like that, unless the | resulting work is an obvious copy of prior art. | 0thgen wrote: | if the models are too opaque to give appropriately weighted | credit to all parties involved in the dataset the model | learned from, would that make it reasonable to just push all | AI generated inventions to the public domain? | | (at least in regards to black box models) | mherdeg wrote: | > The more interesting question I think is whether any of the | creators of the training data used by the AI have any claim | over the generated artwork. | | Feels like we covered this back when we decided whether | sampling music creates a derivative work. | ramoz wrote: | Modern day AI will only augment the writing of patents. Nothing | more than an advancement of technology. There is potential in | seeking legal-advantage through the use of advanced analytical | capabilities... but I can't imagine industry will invest in fully | automated and/or mass generation of "ideas" for potential profit | with the exception of patent-trolling. | | I see this Patent Act as a signal that USPTO is primarily | concerned with a quality patent system; as opposed to a loose | philosophies that would degrade patent quality but likely | heighten patent application submissions, and subsequent flood of | trials that would all benefit their revenue streams. | Rackedup wrote: | Just don't tell them that you used an AI to generate the idea? | hinkley wrote: | I insisted to me Go-playing friend a number of years ago that | what we need is an AI that can teach, as in, can you explain why | this choice was made and why these others were bad? | | I'm not sure what that would exactly look like, but one of the | things I like about Monte Carlo is that it works much more like | how humans actually behave, and in theory when pressed on 'why', | it could _also_ behave more like humans behave: When challenged | you (or at least I) run a more detailed simulation to pick some | particularly juicy counter-examples. And if anywhere in there I | sense self-doubt (why _did_ I make that choice? Is it sound?) | that may trigger a more exhaustive simulation. Turns out my pupil | was right /wrong and now I understand the problem better myself. | | What bothers me with respect to AI and patents is that if you did | this, then you basically have a human rubber stamping an AI | design. Eventually you'll end up with more subtle systems that | resemble police work: this evidence is inadmissible in court but | it does eliminate a set of suspects, so now I need to build a | chain of clean evidence that points to an arrest. The latter | might involve some skill and sophistication on the part of the | human. The former just needs someone who can pass a sniff test on | materials science or mechanical engineering who's willing to lie | for money. | Ken_At_EM wrote: | In the future the have-somethings will own AI and the have- | nothings won't. | 960design wrote: | Let the oppression begin. | tolmasky wrote: | So the person that runs the AI just lists themselves as the | inventor and that's it? Does anything change other than that. | It's not like they can tell if it was made by an AI right? | [deleted] | mywittyname wrote: | It is a good thing to preempt any legal issues by being | explicit in how new technology fits in with existing legal | frameworks, even if the change is likely a NOOP. | | If, 20 years ago, you were to write a program that used an | optimization algorithm to design the optimal cup for drinking | coffee, the patent would go to you, not the code you wrote. | Today, you could do the same thing but call the program an "AI" | and perhaps get a different outcome. | mark_l_watson wrote: | For the very short term, this ruling is probably OK. | | I am on 50+ US patents, and a practitioner of artificial | intelligence for about 40 years. I see AIs becoming partners in | writing patent applications. Corporations that own AI resources | should really be able to use them for legal and ethical things. | | Off topic, but it is ethics that introduces a wrinkle: in an | ideal world widely accepted ethical norms would be codified into | law - not much chance of that happening given the powers of | special interests. | Buttons840 wrote: | It seems the status-quo will be maintained for now. I think | that's good, there's too many unanswered questions about AI. | | If AI can create patents, can AI also publish prior art? It seems | only fair, right? | | But, in that case, the same AI technology used to file 1,000 | patents would be used to create a million trillion publications | of prior art. If an AI can produce something worthy of patent, | then a freely published version of the same would surely count as | prior art. We'd end up with the "great tome of prior art" a 500 | terabyte download filled with patent worthy ideas but freely | published to establish prior art. This is just one of the many | things we might find in Pandora's Box of AI patents. | analog31 wrote: | Right. Prior art is about what it is, not who publishes it. | kodah wrote: | If you give all the rights of a human to AI, it is possible | that AI could be sentenced to "death" (though I'm curious what | form that would take). It could also be sued. Then again, we | said all these things about corporations and look where that's | gotten us. | | Like you, I think preserving the status quo until those | questions are answered is the right thing to do. | inglor_cz wrote: | It could also possibly sue someone else, including other AIs. | | Turtles all the way down. | Bombthecat wrote: | So, i publish this file. | | What would be the difference? | josaka wrote: | A related issue is whether the availability of AI as a tool for | creating innovation should raise the bar for non-obviousness. | Both effects could make it harder to obtain patents. | AlbertCory wrote: | This would be called "obvious to try." It's an old concept in | patent law, which I argue in [1] should be applied to | software. | | [1] | https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2399580 | kweingar wrote: | Thanks for sharing this paper! | | I have always struggled to express exactly what my issue is | with certain software patents. | | With this paper I now have the vocabulary (and examples) to | explain what I mean to someone outside the industry. | AlbertCory wrote: | You're welcome. | | The lawyers don't care, the PTO doesn't care, and | industry executives don't care. The only answer is to get | a bill in Congress, and start asking every candidate for | Senator or Representative if they support it. | | And make it clear that _your_ support for them depends on | a Yes answer. | IgorPartola wrote: | Right. Also what defines AI? If I ask DALL-E to draw me a fancy | gearbox for an EV and it does and then I use that as | inspiration to create a new type of gearbox, did I create it or | did DALL-E? If I ask a similar tool to create a fancy shape for | a fancy gear I want in a mechanism is my idea now tainted by | AI? If my CAD software incorporates a CAD equivalent of | copilot, can I no longer use that? | | Maybe it's not the AI we should get rid of but patents? | amelius wrote: | The difference is that I can now claim that your invention is | not novel, since I can create a similar result using the same | tools. | AlbertCory wrote: | That's not how novelty works. You can "claim" anything you | want, but unless it's in a filing to the PTAB or a court, | it counts for nothing. | amelius wrote: | It is exactly how novelty works. It has to be non-obvious | to a person skilled in the trade. And it is certainly | obvious if it can be produced by a tool using a click of | a button. | jjoonathan wrote: | > non-obvious to a person skilled in the trade | | As evaluated by a patent office with a profit motive to | find it non-obvious. No, I'm not joking. USPTO is funded | entirely from fees. | AlbertCory wrote: | You are right about that. In fact, they make a profit. | | Of course, once you've exhausted your two rounds of | rejection with them, you have to pay again for another | two, or appeal it, so they make money arguing with you, | too. But yeah, probably more $$$ to issue you some | worthless government paper. | AlbertCory wrote: | Considering you apparently don't know the difference | between novelty and obviousness, I think you should stop | now. In particular, what "obviousness" actually means and | how it's been interpreted in patent law for the past 150 | years. | imperio59 wrote: | The bigger question is did the thousands of drawings of gears | used to train the model in the first place and their creators | have any rights to their derivative works. | | Given the AI's output using the trained weights of its models | were in part deduced using their works as training examples, | one could argue that creators of the example pictures should | have some portion of rights on any output from the AI | Model... maybe... | Cerium wrote: | You could use that argument to instead support that any | idea created by the AI is not patentable, since it is | derived mechanically from prior art. | shon wrote: | By that same logic though, isn't society and technology | moving a bit past the idea of prior art? Regardless of | who or what generated the patent, because, Internet? | pitaj wrote: | Doesn't that also apply to humans? We learn things and use | them for future creative endeavors without even realizing. | ramoz wrote: | Yes, commentor above my create a fancy new car tire, but | did they invent the tire? | Tagbert wrote: | Yes, that is why the myth of invention as a brilliant and | isolated act of creation is harmful. We create new things | by by recombining what we have experienced. Patents | ignore the derivative nature of invention while | weaponizing being first to file for an idea. | verdverm wrote: | What happens if the AI later becomes sentient and seeks | remuneration? | yieldcrv wrote: | > can AI also publish prior art? It seems only fair, right? | | What kind of argument is that? That's not even something | anybody is debating about? | | Prior art just nukes the novelty of a claim in a subsequent | patent written by anyone, including the whole patentability. | | The source of the prior art is not important. | Cupertino95014 wrote: | Correct. In theory, even if the only way to get it was to | walk up to a public library in East Timor and find it in the | "card catalog," and it wasn't available _anywhere_ else, it | 's prior art. | O__________O wrote: | Nothing stopping a human from running AI to create prior art, | AI just cannot be listed as the creator. | | Related, "Using Artificial Intelligence to Mass Produce Prior | Art in Patent Law" (2021): | | https://vanderbiltlawreview.org/lawreview/2021/03/the-librar... | badrabbit wrote: | "AI" is not special. This isn't the movies(right!? :P). If you | write a script that tries random combinations of materials and | test it against a problem only to find a solution, that is no | different than "AI" finding the solution. How a computer | generated the product/solution is irrelevant. | | Even if computers were just as intelligent and sentient as | humans they have no rights or recognition by law. They are not | members of society, citizens or entities that have rights and | obligations under rule of law. A document/proceeding that uses | a non-human entity (I would exclude animals but even they have | some rights) is by default invalid. | | But, I say what should be under reason and logic which are not | important to many judges or this society as a whole as | evidenced by asset forfeiture and how they consider property a | subject of prosecution as if property has any obligation or | capacity to follow the rule of law. Essentially, the law is | whatever arbitrary thing judges feel like with no rhyme or | reason other than "this won't get me | disrobed/jailed/disbarred". Companies are people, propery is | people, people are property if they commit a crime (but not the | kind of property that has rights lol). Bees are a type of fish | in california (really.), you get the picture the assumption | that the law is reasonable is false even though the "reasonable | person" doctrine is what supposedly keeps the US legal system | running. So in reality, this ruling just reflects what the | judge felt like, appeal to a higher court and they might decide | AI has more rights than minorities. | AmericanChopper wrote: | I have no idea what's supposed to be interesting or novel here. | An AI is just software. Software has always been capable of | generating IP, or publishing IP. Why would there be any reason | to presume that AI software could start filing patents? | colonwqbang wrote: | Nothing in the judgment seems to suggest that AI cannot produce | valid art as in prior art. I would tend to think it can. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-08-05 23:01 UTC)