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I am a research fellow at a large tech company and part of my job is to produce a certain number of patents per year. I have used AI as an "aid" to developing a

I am a research fellow at a large tech company and part of my job is to produce a certain number of patents per year. I have used AI as an "aid" to developing a patent several times but never thought for one minute it would make sense to list AI as the inventor. That is ridiculous. I have used Excel, R, Google Search, Mathematica, Python and several other modeling tools etc. to develop new IPR, obviously no one would list any of those. It was me doing the inventing, I am just using tool like any other.

km3r 5y ago
It's draws an interesting question though, at what point, if ever, does an AI system move beyond the scope of a tool and into the scope of an assistant? I don't think we are anywhere near that yet, but it's conceivable that we reach a point where that question needs to be answered.
- Ekaros 5y ago
  When it can file for patent without prompt from anyone else and then argue in court for itself. And it wasn't build to do that.
  - zw123456 5y ago
    When it can do my job for me without my boss knowing the difference :)
- stormbrew 5y ago
  I mean does it matter? Not like assistants get anything out of patents either. For the most part these days even the inventor pretty rarely gets most of the benefit from patents, they've usually signed it away before they even 'invented' the thing.
  - iakh 5y ago
    If any "inventor" is not listed as such on the patent, then it's another way to invalidate the patent. So while possibly not a benefit to the inventor, definitely good for the assignees to have clarity on the matter.
- foxpurple 5y ago
  What would be the point of a program owning a patent? Is it going to charge you royalties for use? Where does that money go? If it gets it’s own bank account, what happens when you run two instances of the same program? Do you split the account in half and then join it when one exits? It’s all nonsensical anyway.
  - jobigoud 5y ago
    The second instance is a totally different entity and does not own the patent or bank account of the first, unless they decide to somehow merge their state-vectors and become a single entity.
stjohnswarts 5y ago
Actually this is one of the things I ask about during interviews up front if the answer is "yes" then I immediately ask them if that can be negotiated out of the employee agreement, otherwise I just politely end the interview and tell them I won't be a good candidate.
- zw123456 5y ago
  Right. A lot of people don't like it. I am a weirdo and really enjoy it and I am better at that than other things like coding. A lot of the stuff I have come up with other people who are better at the coding do that part and I do the hardware design, that is my forte.

km3r 5y ago

It's draws an interesting question though, at what point, if ever, does an AI system move beyond the scope of a tool and into the scope of an assistant? I don't think we are anywhere near that yet, but it's conceivable that we reach a point where that question needs to be answered.

Ekaros 5y ago
When it can file for patent without prompt from anyone else and then argue in court for itself. And it wasn't build to do that.
- zw123456 5y ago
  When it can do my job for me without my boss knowing the difference :)
stormbrew 5y ago
I mean does it matter? Not like assistants get anything out of patents either. For the most part these days even the inventor pretty rarely gets most of the benefit from patents, they've usually signed it away before they even 'invented' the thing.
- iakh 5y ago
  If any "inventor" is not listed as such on the patent, then it's another way to invalidate the patent. So while possibly not a benefit to the inventor, definitely good for the assignees to have clarity on the matter.
foxpurple 5y ago
What would be the point of a program owning a patent? Is it going to charge you royalties for use? Where does that money go? If it gets it’s own bank account, what happens when you run two instances of the same program? Do you split the account in half and then join it when one exits? It’s all nonsensical anyway.
- jobigoud 5y ago
  The second instance is a totally different entity and does not own the patent or bank account of the first, unless they decide to somehow merge their state-vectors and become a single entity.

stjohnswarts 5y ago

Actually this is one of the things I ask about during interviews up front if the answer is "yes" then I immediately ask them if that can be negotiated out of the employee agreement, otherwise I just politely end the interview and tell them I won't be a good candidate.

zw123456 5y ago
Right. A lot of people don't like it. I am a weirdo and really enjoy it and I am better at that than other things like coding. A lot of the stuff I have come up with other people who are better at the coding do that part and I do the hardware design, that is my forte.