Batch Norm Patent Granted To Google: Is AI Ownership The Gold Rush Of 21st Century?

The machine learning community has witnessed a surge in releases of frameworks, libraries and software. Tech pioneers like Google, Amazon, Microsoft and others have insisted their intention behind open-sourcing their technology. However, there has been a growing trend of these tech giants claiming ownership for their innovations. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research study, in 2010, there were 145 US patent filings that mentioned machine learning, compared to 594 in 2016. Google, especially, has filed patents related to machine learning and neural networks 99 times in 2016 alone.