USPTO Requests Comments on Patenting Artificial Intelligence Inventions Lexology

On August 22, 2019, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) published a request for comments on patenting artificial intelligence inventions. Written comments must be received on or before October 11, 2019. The AI inventorship issue came to a head earlier this year when the inventor of an algorithm named DABUS (device for the autonomous bootstrapping of unified sentience) filed beverage container and flashing light patent applications in DABUS' name in the United Kingdom, Europe, and the United States. Additionally, many today see patent eligibility as a significant hurdle to obtaining patent protection in AI technologies. China and the United States lead in patent filings in all AI techniques and functional applications, as well as AI application fields.