6 ms·
UK court allows ANN patent saying computer programs exclusion does not apply
- beejiu 3y agoSkimmed through this, but couldn't quite understand why the appeal was allowed given all the evidence pointing to the opposite in the judgement. Is a summary that, because the ANN could be implemented in hardware, it is not necessarily strictly software, and therefore patentable? Edit: There's a more digestible summary here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/examination-of-patent-applications-involving-artificial-neural-networks/examination-of-patent-applications-involving-artificial-neural-networks-ann https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/examination-of-pa... > 8. The judgment notes that an ANN may be implemented in hardware, for example a physical box with electronics in it (see [14]), or in software where the ANN exists as a computer emulation, for example where a conventional computer runs a piece of software which enables the computer to emulate the hardware ANN (see [18]). > 9. The judgment compares hardware and software implementations of an ANN (see [32]-[62]). For hardware implementations, the judgment notes there is no program to which the program exclusion of s.1(2)(c) can apply (see [43]). For software implementations, the judgment holds it is appropriate to look at the emulated ANN as, in substance, operating in the same way as the hardware ANN it emulates. If the hardware ANN is not operating as a program, then neither is the emulated ANN (see [56]). > 10. Thus, *the judgment concludes an emulated ANN is not a program for a computer* (see [58]). As a matter of construction, the claimed invention is not a computer program at all (see [61]). So, the computer program exclusion is not invoked by the claimed invention ([61]).
- ryanjshaw 3y ago> For hardware implementations, the judgment notes there is no program to which the program exclusion Puzzling argument. This logic can apply to every single computer program (i.e. it can be implemented in hardware), which means the exclusion will never apply, which means the judge's reasoning is wrong.
- DarkmSparks 3y agoBut he has a "Sir" in his title. That is guaranteed to ensure maximum accuracy and flawless logical thought. I've no problem burning some karma on this one, the "BUSINESS AND PROPERTY COURTS OF ENGLAND AND WALES" are basically a shop to "buy a judgement" from somewhere sounding authentic. Absolute scam. To whoever "won" the appeal, well done, you have a software patent, "good luck"; in his opening article he even points out to you in his opening statement this can't be applied to program for a computer. Money well spent eh.
- cesaref 3y agoYou are right, judges can not be wrong, but they can misdirect themselves.
- littlestymaar 3y ago> For hardware implementations, the judgment notes there is no program to which the program exclusion of s.1(2)(c) can apply This is complete nonsense, but not surprising because the judge probably has no idea what a program is. In France, a few years ago, when discussing the matter of Web cookies, some authority described cookies as “little programs” ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- timeimp 3y agoSection 12 seems to contain the real reason why this is a technical contribution: > The judgment accepts an argument that moving data outside the computer system, in the form of a file that is transferred, provides an external (outside world) technical effect. > When coupled with the purpose and method of selecting the file’s contents, this fulfils the requirement for a technical effect which avoids the computer program exclusion. Sounds like these sorts of "decision matrix"-type ANNs are going to now be patentable if there is some kind of application of "special sauce" that can be used to select files or some other external component.
- justinclift 3y agoThat's not really special sauce though. Using data from an external sauce is foundational computing. :(
- thfuran 3y agoOnly impure software uses I/O. This judge is clearly versed in the highest arts.
- toyg 3y agoIsn't that a bit silly...? Almost any software can potentially be implemented in hardware and be "emulated". The Comptroller-General of Patents has an awesome job title and, imho, was right on this (and the judge is wrong).
- beejiu 3y agoIt's very strange. It's also not clear to me why you couldn't construct that any software is a hardware emulation, and therefore use that as a claim of prior art. Seems to be a fundamental contradiction.
- amelius 3y agoDon't rely on logic in matters involving patents.
- belter 3y agoI will patent this.
- ForOldHack 3y agoI will patent that. The judges being bereft of both intelligence and abundantly full of property and pomposity, I do ordane that both parties and judiciary are far outside of the f*king boat in which they are engaged in rowing. Turn off the machine and show me the circuit? It is not there. It should be copyrightable... But since created by machine, it should not be. Scrooge should come early for them. I shall argue on.
- vintermann 3y agoI'd rather say, don't rely on logic in matters involving judges.
- esrauch 3y agoI'm not sure how the UK avoided software patents before now based on this argument though. As in: - literally implement ANN in hardware - patent it - someone emulates your patented design in software (or even hardware of some parts slightly abstracted to make "emulation" of your patent fast). What happens now? Either all emulatable hardware patents are useless, or there's a backdoor into software patents (synthetically put it in hardware first).
- mirekrusin 3y agoNAND and NOR gates are sufficient for any computation, so you can invalidate any software saying it's form of emulation of hardware?
- thesuperbigfrog 3y agoSo if I implement a software version of the ANN with one small change, my software version is not an emulation of the hardware ANN, so the patent does not apply?
- falling_myshkin 3y agothe doctrine is that only things that are 'novel' and 'non-obvious' (to a 'person having ordinary skill in the art') can be patented, and any accessible published material (among other things) is considered 'prior art' for determining this. So unless your 'one small change' fundamentally alters the behavior of the 'black box' in a novel way, one would probably say that it is not novel and pretty obvious for a person having ordinary skill in the art to emulate a slightly modified version the hardware in software. of course, vector search on music also seems pretty obvious to me. I don't actually know how this plays into infringement specifically rather than trying to patent something though.
- cubefox 3y agoSomeone should tell them that any program for a universal Turing machine could be implemented as an ordinary Turing machine. That any computer program could be implemented as an ASIC.
- acomjean 3y agoComputer chips are designed from software Programs. It used to be a language called verilog. (According to wikipedia based on ADA, pascal,C and Fortran) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verilog https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verilog
- mannykannot 3y agoThanks for the link to the Statutory Guidance, which provides some very helpful commentary, and I feel that points 12 and 13 are of some interest: 12. The judgment accepts an argument that moving data outside the computer system, in the form of a file that is transferred, provides an external (outside world) technical effect (see [73]-[74]). When coupled with the purpose and method of selecting the file’s contents, this fulfills the requirement for a technical effect which avoids the computer program exclusion (see [76]). 13. The judgment further holds that a trained hardware ANN is capable of being an external technical effect which prevents the computer program exclusion from applying (see [78]). The judgment holds there ought to be no difference between a hardware ANN and an emulated ANN in this respect. If I am not mistaken (though there is a good chance I am), the judge could have made a narrow judgement in favor of the plaintiff on the basis of point 12 alone. Inventions that use a suitably-programmed computer in a process that produces an "external technical effect" are not prima facie ruled out (though they do have to satisfy a requirement of sufficiency of description, which, as the judge noted in his opening remarks, is not being ruled on here, together with (I think) non-obvious novelty and utility) Point 13 may have much broader implications, as it asserts that any trained software ANN is, in itself, an "external technical effect", and presumably patentable if it satisfies other requirements such as sufficiency. The first issue with this is, as you and others have pointed out, that the justification given for this claim (the possibility of a functionally-equivalent implementation in hardware) works equally well for any computer program - ANN programs are not different in this regard. If followed to its logical conclusion, this principle would seem to completely nullify the "program for a computer" exclusion. A second point that might be made here is that the difference between a trained ANN (whether implemented in software or hardware), and itself in its untrained state, are data - specifically, the weights. This might imply that the intellectual property issue here is a matter of copyright, not invention. Finally, and perhaps most broadly, if a trained ANN is, in itself, an "external technical effect", does that open the door to the patenting of ANN training methods? (Maybe they already are?)
- montebicyclelo 3y agoHmm, seems someone's managed to patent something fairly trivial... the same thing as OpenAI's Clip, but instead of with image-text pairs, with music-text pairs; for vector retrieval. And apparently neural networks aren't software because they can be implemented as hardware...
- falling_myshkin 3y agoI agree, vector search on music seems pretty obvious at this point.
- mrtksn 3y agoIf I understand this correctly, the court decided that the programming part is an implementation detail therefore it is not the primary subject of the patent claim. As a result, the judge reasoned that the claim is not primarily to a computer program, thus not invoking the exclusion . Sounds fair to me. If the actual invention claim is patentable is another story though, it's just that being implemented in code doesn't make it a computer program automatically.
- tinus_hn 3y agoSo the conclusion is, lawmakers decided software patents are unwanted. But I know better than them, so I’ll allow them anyway. I hope there’s still the possibility of appeal and this bad judgement is reversed.
- piqufoh 3y agoPatent appeal for artificial neural network, the appellant argued that the ANN was self-trained and not directly programmed with detailed logical steps, thus, it shouldn't be considered a computer program under the exclusion.
- itronitron 3y agoI am not a patent lawyer but my understanding is that a patent requires that the application show that the invention is reproducible. And if it's reproducible then the logical steps must therefore be sufficiently detailed :/
- timwaagh 3y agoJudge decides that he is a lawmaker now. This unfortunately happens quite a lot. It erodes trust in the judicial system
- vanderZwan 3y agoAren't UK-style law systems kind of built upon precedents set by the interpretation of the law by judges? I don't like it either but that's how I've seen the differences explained
- spzb 3y agoYes. I am not a lawyer, but if I recall correctly there are three types of law : statute (what parliament legislates), common law (that which has built up over the centuries as "just the way we expect the law to work" and precedent ("this was unclear at one point but courts down the years have been convinced that what it means is x"). Appeals are usually on the basis that the court has misunderstood or misapplied the law and the outcome of these appeals form the precedents for future cases.
- logicchains 3y agoIn the common law system that's judges' job, to via precedent create law for things that aren't clearly specified in legislation. If the populace/legislature dislike it, then they can pass explicit legislation on the issue, which will override the precedent set by the judge.
- pylua 3y agoI definitely believe this to be true, however -- unfortunately this process is too slow and complex to act as a practical counter balance.
- engineer_22 3y ago"move fast and break things" isn't the slogan of good governance
- jbjbjbjb 3y ago> It is not implementing code given to it by a human. The structure, in terms of the emulation of uneducated nodes and layers, may well be the result of programming, but that is just the equivalent of the hardware ANN. The actual operation of those nodes and layers inter se is not given to those elements by a human. It is created by the ANN itself. So therefore the inventor is a computer? I thought that was settled already.
- ajuc 3y agoIt's sad how people that don't understand computer science have the power to enforce such idiotic rules.
- DarkmSparks 3y agojust a quick fyi, this is "BUSINESS AND PROPERTY COURTS OF ENGLAND AND WALES" These guys are some absolute jokers, really not worth taking any of their decisions seriously. None of their decisions are enforceable even inside the UK, its basically just a pit to give employment to washed out lawyers who are friends of whoever. UK legal system has gone the same way as their healthcare system.
- BubbleRings 3y agoJust fyi, (and because I'm showing off), the United States has issued patents on software-based recommending systems. I know because mine was one of the very first ones issued. Maybe the very first, depending on how you look at it. If you're curious, I understand it can be an okay introduction into the field of music recommending. It as about as easy to read as such patents can be, since I wasn't smart enough to do any work near as complex as the stuff you machine learning folks do these days. A friend of mine called it "toothpick AI" back in the day (it issued in 1995.) Have a look here: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5749081A https://patents.google.com/patent/US5749081A Here's my own website about the patent and the adventure. Someday I need to add something there, about how I could do anything as dumb as let Microsoft be the owner of it. It's a long story, which I could elaborate on if anyone is interested. Anyway: https://www.whiteis.com/patents-overview https://www.whiteis.com/patents-overview I would always enjoy discussing it with anyone, get in touch!
- tingol 3y agoSoftware patents are a bad joke, thanks for being one of the pioneers of the worst thing to happen in our field.
- BubbleRings 3y agoHa, I knew someone would start off by adding a hostile comment of that form. What can I say? If you had been James Marshall, and you noticed the gold that kicked off the California gold rush, do you think you would you have left it there in the water, because you think you would have been able to see into the future, and see the terrible ecological consequences that gold mining sometimes brings? No, you would have picked it up, like anybody else.