Report: Computers should be named on patent applications to reflect computer inventorship

Computers are already writing songs and designing toothbrushes, argues law professor

The global patent system ought to be overhauled in order to reflect computer inventorship, in a move that would encourage the development of 'creative computers'.

That is the suggestion of Ryan Abbott, professor of law at the University of Surrey School of Law, who believes that computers should, increasingly, be named in patent applications and even be legally granted patents.

"While some patent prosecutors say the ability of machines to create patentable inventions on their own is well off in the future, artificial intelligence has actually been generating inventive ideas for decades. In just one example, an artificial intelligence system named ‘The Creativity Machine' invented the first cross-bristled toothbrush design," said Abbott.

"Soon, computers will be routinely inventing and it may only be a matter of time until computers are responsible for most innovation. To optimise innovation - and the positive impact this will have on our economies - it is critical that we extend the laws around inventorship to include computers," he added.

Abbott pushed his idea in an article published in the Boston College Law Review.

"Machines have been autonomously generating patentable results for at least twenty years and that the pace of such invention is likely increasing... In some cases, a computer's output constitutes patentable subject matter, and the computer rather than a person meets the requirements for inventorship.

"Despite this, and despite the fact that the Patent Office has already granted patents for inventions by computers, the issue of computer inventorship has never been explicitly considered by the courts, [the US] Congress, or the Patent Office," wrote Abbott.

The US Copyright Office, he notes, does have a 'human authorship requirement' - but this may change. "Treating non-humans as inventors would incentivise the creation of intellectual property by encouraging the development of creative computers," he added.

The Creativity Machine that Abbott cites was invented by computer scientist Dr Stephen Thaler. Based on neural-network-based artificial intelligence, it can, claims Abbott, generate novel ideas. Thaler claims that, after exposing it to his music collection, it wrote 11,000 new songs in a single weekend.

While the Creativity Machine was Thaler's first patented invention, his second, a "Neural Network Based Prototyping System and Method", was created not by Thaler himself, but by his first patented invention. A multi-talented machine, it was also responsible for devising the Oral-B CrossAction toothbrush, according to Abbott - but hasn't received the credit it deserves.

"Creative computers may require a rethinking of the baseline standard for inventiveness, and potentially of the entire patent system," believes Abbott.

In addition, he suggests that computers could also be used to help adjudicate patents for their inventiveness and, hence, validity.