EPO Board of Appeal decision indicates approach to Core AI Inventions - Lexology

Potential obstacles to obtaining patent protection in Europe for an improvement in a general method for machine learning have been highlighted by a recent decision (T0702/20) from the EPO Board of Appeal. The decision relates to an application for a novel neural network apparatus having "loose coupling", based on an error code check matrix, between nodes of the neural network resulting in an initial configuration of the neural network that was argued to speed up training and operation of the apparatus while maintaining discrimination performance. The differences of the claimed invention over the prior art had been acknowledged during prosecution, but the Examining Division had rejected the Application on the basis that the distinguishing features "do not serve a technical purpose, and they are not related to a specific technical implementation either. They merely pertain to the initial, fixed structural definition of an abstract mathematical neural network-like model". During the Appeal, the Applicant provided several arguments as to why the claimed system did indeed serve a technical purpose which were not found persuasive by the Board. In response, the Board noted that a neural network can, in principle (if difficult in practice), be analysed to replace the inputs to each neuron by mathematical functions implemented by the nodes of the previous layer, and ultimately to obtain a mathematical description that describes the output of the neural network as a function of the input.