The UKIPO has issued guidance about patent applications relating to AI inventions. The government has summaries AI as being “technologies with the ability to perform tasks that would otherwise require human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, and language translation”. The guidance says that in the UK, patents are available for AI inventions in all fields of technology. The guidance contains examples and is summarised as follows:
– AI inventions are typically computer-implemented and may rely on mathematical methods and computer programs in some way. UK patent law excludes from patent protection inventions relating solely to a mathematical method “as such” and/or a program for a computer “as such”. However, these exclusions are applied as a matter of “substance not form” by considering the task or process an AI invention performs when it runs.
- embody a technical process which exists outside the computer; or
- contribute to the solution of a technical problem lying outside the computer; or
- solve a technical problem lying within the computer itself; or
- define a new way of operating the computer in a technical sense;
- as may happen when one or more of the five “signposts” (see HTC Europe Co Ltd v Apple Inc [2013] RPC 30) point to allowability.
– AI inventions are not excluded if they are claimed in hardware-only form, that is, if they do not rely on program instructions or a programmable device for their implementation.
- relates solely to items listed as being excluded (for example, a business method) and there is no more to it; or
- relates solely to processing or manipulating information or data and there is no more to it; or
- has the effect of just being a better or well-written program for a conventional computer and there is no more to it.
– The conditions set out above apply whether the invention is categorised as “applied AI” or “core AI” or it relates to training an AI invention in some way.
