On Friday, 7 July 2023, Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) delivered the following statement on the work of WIPO’s Standing Committee on the Law of Patents.
KEI GA statement on work of SCP
July 7, 2023
Generative AI is going to be used to write and review patents.
While AI only inventions might not qualify for patents, inventors using AI will certainly qualify.
AI may lead to an explosion of patent applications, and this may lead to new concerns on patent thickets.
As we have seen in standards essential patents, and in platform technologies for biomedical products, in some cases, patents should be implemented as a remunerative right, and not as an exclusive right. We believe that AI will push policy makers in this direction.
We are not sure where this fits at WIPO, but there should be a deeper discussion of how trade secret protection will be used in AI services, both where you have an enablement challenge for patented inventions, and a public interest in monitoring and auditing the services themselves for bias or other harm related concerns.