To be precise: there is no dispute that there are many inventions that involve inhuman tools such as a simple pocket calculator or powerful computers, and their patentability is not disputed[3]. What, if any, is the line between when a powerful computer is used, for example, and when artificial intelligence is involved? What, if any, is the level of human involvement we expect?
Do we want to give patent protection to inventions created "through" artificial intelligence (and what is the meaning of the word "through", pp. 28, 27 - p. 30, 13)? (Will this serve the purposes of patent law? Is there room to change the purposes of these laws?
- The main explanation given at the hearing for the choice to indicate "inventor" in the application form was a desire for full disclosure, avoidance of concealment and preservation of the "purity of the register" (pp. 9, 22-27, pp. 17, 17, 26, 15). The importance of the principle of disclosure is known and is not in dispute. However, it is possible that for this purpose, a full description of the documents submitted together with the application form would have been sufficient.
A more practical response to the move was given later, when it was noted that in cases where patent applications are filed in other countries and in those countries, an inventor must be named (and this is the case in our case), "it entered the record in Israel" (p. 18, paras. 8-15). This response may conceivably an attempt to challenge the matter by way of a patent application that will first be filed in Israel (see p. 51, 5-6).
- In any event, the starting point in the discussion was the declaration that the machine, and it alone, invented the inventions that are the subject of the patent applications. The appellant believes this with complete faith and does not attribute to himself any involvement that could lead to a different conclusion (pp. 20, 26, p. 21, 6, p. 21, 24-27, 27, 28, 29, 29, 2).
Section 11(b) of the Patents Law - General
- As quoted above, Section 11(b) The Patent Law states that if a patent applicant is not the inventor, he must notify in the patent application "how the owner of the invention was".
- A notice regarding the manner in which the patent applicant became the owner of the invention must be consistent with the manner in which the law allows recognition of an owner of an invention who is not the inventor.
This way is found in the definition of an "inventor". As mentioned above, the owner of an invention is defined as someone who is "the inventor himself or those who come by virtue of it, and they are the person who is entitled to the invention by virtue of the law or by transfer or by agreement".
- I accept the Registrar's position that "A person who is entitled to an invention by virtue of the law or by transfer or according to an agreement" shall be deemed to have come from the "power" of the inventor (paragraph 33 of the decision; p. 4, paras. 8-13 of the hearing of August 2, 2022, which took place before the Registrar, A/11). The Registrar did not follow in the footsteps of the examiner, who believed that these were cumulative requirements and therefore that an applicant who is not an inventor must show both eligibility (by virtue of law, transfer or agreement) and that it "comes by virtue of the inventor".
If so, a patent applicant who is not the inventor must show eligibility by virtue of law, transfer or agreement.