Vulnerabilities of the Patent System

Under prevalent patent systems around the world, patenting of inventions related to advances in quantum computing, synthetic biology, and artificial intelligence (AI) have begun to raise serious concerns. Advances in AI are particularly problematic because their influence will be felt on all hitherto patent eligible inventions. Since AI machines have the potential to prolifically invent patentable technology, it will undoubtedly shake the very foundation on which the patent system presently rests. It will require us to redefine what we mean by novelty, non-obviousness, and written description of the invention (e.g., shouldn’t a binary string suffice as written description because it is the lingua franca of computers). In this chapter we focus on the US patent system.