AI Implemented Inventions as Prior Art - A Report from the 2020 European Patent Office Patent Information Conference

A key legal requirement in patent law is that an invention must be disclosed in a patent application in enough detail to enable a hypothetical person skilled in the art to understand and carry out the invention. With inventions that rely on AI, the specific details of how exactly the invention arose may not be available for a variety of reasons. This poses a challenge to both the patent drafter and the prior art searcher in all fields of technology where AI is applied. How does one describe or search for technical details that are difficult to explain or that are simply unavailable? Add to this the ever-expanding public domain repositories of computer generated data and the search for prior art indeed becomes an arduous task. During this discussion round, we will explore these issues and discuss some ways in which to cope with the inevitable concerns.