Posts Tagged: "patent prosecution"

AI Versus Manual Patent Searching: How a Hybrid Approach Can Optimize Success

With the forecasted growth of global Artificial Intelligence (AI) market size, it is evident that AI is quickly becoming the solution to most software and service needs. AI has even infiltrated our homes—for example, we are increasingly seeing smart home systems that incorporate Internet of Things (IoT) technology along with a master AI virtual assistant. Undoubtedly, the technology has made space in the intellectual property-based service sector as well. For instance, to support patent searching, there are quite a few AI-based automated patent search tools available. Although many of these are still in their training stage, these tools are likely to mature. Thereafter, the question looming over innovators is whether to take advantage of affordable AI patent search tools or invest in outsourced manual patentability searches.

Deep Learning: Tracking the Growth of an Emerging Technology

In 2015, I spotted what I thought might be an emerging technology: deep learning. Because of my engineering education, I was able to go up the “deep learning” curve. The term “deep learning” is the current name for a “deep neural network,” which was previously called a “multi-layer neural network.” While our organic brains are filled with approximately 86 billion neurons, the “deep learning” quest was built on mathematics and Graphics Processing Units (GPUs). It seemed like a breakthrough. With enough examples of a category, could a deep learning model assess data that the model hadn’t seen previously, and then score, rank and report the “matches” to a user? In short order, I was persuaded that the answer was yes.

DABUS Defeated Again—But Judges Divided

The England and Wales Court of Appeal has upheld lower rulings that two patent applications designating an artificial intelligence called DABUS as the inventor were deemed to be withdrawn. (Thaler v Comptroller General of Patents Trade Marks And Designs [2021] EWCA Civ 1374.) However, the three judges were split, with the two patent specialists on the panel taking different views. Dr. Stephen Thaler filed two UK patent applications in October and November 2018 for a “Food Container” and “Devices And Methods For Attracting Enhanced Attention” respectively. Parallel applications have been filed in many other jurisdictions, as reported previously by IPWatchdog.

U.S. Embassy Failures, COVID-19 Travel Restrictions, Keep Attorney Working on COVID-19 Technology Out of United States

Surely there can be no greater national interest to the United States than to allow each and every single person working to solve the COVID-19 pandemic to cross our border without issue, especially those who have already earned visas to work in the United States. However, a series of unfortunate events and policies has resulted in an ironic situation in which, in one example, an attorney from Sweden, who has spent significant periods of time within the United States since 2006, cannot return to the states to sit for the patent bar; aid members and clients of her law firm who are needful of her unique skills, including one colleague who is undergoing medical treatment for a serious health condition; or prosecute several patent applications representing some vital advancements in the fight against COVID-19. U.S. Embassy inaction, which is blocking her ability to take the U.S. patent bar, join her colleagues in the U.S. who have mentored her in this field for a year-and-a-half, and work on these COVID-19 patent solutions, arguably threatens the very chance of those inventions and technologies being properly commercialized to benefit everyone in the United States and beyond.

Importance of Accurate Translation of Non-English Priority Patent Applications

Can a U.S. patent be invalidated due to an inaccurate translation of the non-English priority patent application? The answer is most definitely “Yes.” This article examines the recent Federal Circuit decision in which this occurred, IBSA Institut Biochimique, S.A. v. Teva Pharm. USA, Inc., 966 F.3d 1374 (Fed. Cir. 2020), and discusses the procedural framework on how to prevent and correct such a problem.