Ben Volk Talks to Law360 on USPTO Guidance for AI and Patents
February 15, 2024
Thompson Coburn partner Ben Volk was quoted in a Law360 article on key takeaways from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's (USPTO) guidance on patents for inventions developed using artificial intelligence.
Ben said it was notable that the USPTO recognized that AI can play a vital role in the invention process, and also that there is a need to "put some more guardrails around how heavily a human can rely on the AI to do the heavy lifting."
"But I think they've come up with a good starting point for investigating those questions," he said. Ben also noted real-world disputes in the patent office and the courts will deal with middle ground between the clear examples in the guidance, and "those are the kind of gray cases that I think that we're going to need a little more guidance from the patent office to really feel comfortable about. But again, I think it's a good starting point."
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