Individual patent filings are surging as generative artificial intelligence (AI) is used for everything from generating ideas to drafting patent documents. This has raised a new question of how far AI-created ideas should be recognized as human inventions.
"Patent filings in the first half of this year increased 30% from the same period last year, while individual filings rose 150%," said Kim Yong-sun, head of the Intellectual Property Office, at the first Intellectual Property Strategy Forum held on the 27th at the Josun Palace in Gangnam-gu, Seoul. "About 70% of individual filings were 'solo filings' conducted without an agent, and we believe AI has had an influence."
At the forum, the standards for recognizing AI-assisted inventions were discussed under the theme "To what extent should technology developed using AI be protected as patents." Park Sung-pil, dean of KAIST's Moon Soul Graduate School of Future Strategy, explained that filing a design obtained by entering prompts into AI as is, or simply manufacturing it, makes it difficult to regard a human as the inventor. On the other hand, he said that if a person conducts experiments directly based on the results presented by AI, modifies the structure, or adds new technology, it can be recognized as a human invention. The mere fact that AI was used is not a reason to reject patent registration, he said.
However, it is not easy to objectively prove how much a human contributed during the invention process. A suggestion was made that researchers should record in detail in their research notes how they modified the results produced by AI, what experiments they went through, and why they chose or excluded a particular method among several candidates.
If the use of AI becomes established as a common research method, the "inventive step" standard for obtaining a patent may also rise. Assuming that researchers use AI as a basic tool, technologies that were recognized as new inventions in the past could now be judged as results that anyone can easily come up with. "We should not only consider how much AI contributed to an invention, but also socially discuss whom the patent system should benefit and how," Park said.
