Increasingly, companies are using artificial intelligence to invent new methods and products. But can a named inventor be a non-human machine under the law? That depends on which country's laws are being applied. The question of whether a country's Patent Act requires an "inventor" to be a human being is a question of statutory construction. For example, in the U.S. the statute requires an application for patent be made "by the inventor…in writing to the Director."1

In August, the US government announced the release of $ 1 billion in financing to ensure "that the United States continues to lead the world in artificial intelligence and quantum computing," according to US chief technology officer Michael Kratsios. It seems that the money came too late: for the first time, China surpassed the US in number of AI patents, with more than 110,000 applications filed last year. The news was given by the deputy head of the Chinese Academy of Cyberspace Studies, Li Yuxiao at a press conference on the 23rd, during the 7th World Internet Conference (WIC). "China is strengthening its independence in information technology on the Internet," he said, without mentioning how many AI patents have been registered by the United States. During the event, two studies were presented on Chinese efforts to develop the internal digital economy.

The artificial intelligence patent landscape shows disruption across the entire technology ecosystem. At present, the USPTO is looking for data on computerized reasoning Artificial Intelligence (AI) Inventions. In spite of the fact that the concentration here is AI development, the important hidden string is corporate invention. For AI Inventions the person who conceives the training program of that AI is the inventor as well. Distinguishing the new unobvious arrangement would establish a discovery, since AI isn't aware, the individual who initially recognizes it makes the discovery.

According to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Technology Trends report, 50 per cent of all patents for AI – the replication of human intelligence by machines for use in industries such as transport and healthcare, for instance – have been published since 2013, adding up to more than 170,000 different patented ideas. This followed on from an initial boom in AI scientific publications, which began in 2001. WIPO Director General Francis Gurry told journalists in Geneva the surge in patenting was "striking", noting that AI research began in the 1950s. "But there has been a quantum leap since about 2013, so we're dealing with what is happening right now in a very fast-moving field," he insisted. By number, patent applications for machine learning, indicate that this is currently the dominant application of AI; think of apps that include ride-sharing services to minimize detours.

China and the United States are ahead of the global competition to dominate artificial intelligence (AI), according to a study by the United Nations World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) published on Thursday. The research found tech giant IBM had by far the biggest AI patent portfolio with 8,920 patents, ahead of Microsoft with 5,930, and a group of mainly Japanese tech conglomerates. China accounted for 17 of the top 20 academic institutions involved in patenting AI and was particularly strong in the fast-growing area of "deep learning" - a machine-learning technique that includes speech recognition systems. "The US and China obviously have stolen a lead. They're out in front in this area in terms of numbers of applications and in scientific publications," WIPO Director-General Francis Gurry told a news conference.