Great discussion on AI subject matter eligibility with Deputy Commissioner for Patents Charles Kim at the annual National Association of Patent Practitioners (NAPP). The USPTO just issued new guidance on subject matter eligibility this past Monday July 17th. Here is a link to the new subject matter eligibility guidance: https://www.uspto.gov/about-us/news-updates/uspto-issues-ai-subject-matter-eligibility-guidance
As a very brief breakdown of the guidance in lay terms, the USPTO outlined three new examples of how to avoid issues with rejections based on subject matter eligibility with respect to patenting the utilization of AI. The first example describes an invention utilizing AI for cybersecurity. This topic example makes sense as many of the new patents being filed are related this field. The eligible matter is directed to the detection of malicious packets and dropping the packets in real time.
Page 12 of the guidance states, "The disclosed system detects network intrusions and takes real-time remedial actions, including dropping suspicious packets and blocking traffic from suspicious sources..." Page 12 further states the reasoning for eligibility as "when considered in combination, (additional claim elements) integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because the claim improves the functioning of a computer or technical field..."
The second example is directed to speech separation utilizing AI. The technique disclosed is capable of separating two speech sources that belong to the same class where the original speech source training data is not provided/available and AI is utilized to perform the analysis. This example is another invention that is integrated into a practical application thereby becoming patent eligible.
The third example is related to utilizing AI to create a personalized medical treatment for patients with a fibrosis condition. The disclosure is directed to the treatment of post micro stent implant inflammation for glaucoma. The treatment, eye drops of compound X, is determined by an AI model that utilizes genotype data collected from the patient.
Specifically, the guidance states (page 35) "the abstract idea (data collection and analysis by AI) is used to identify the patient as belonging to a specific patient population (glaucoma patients at high risk of PI), and the patient is then administered a treatment (Compound X eye drops instead of any common anti-fibrotic treatment)..." results in the disclosure being patent eligible.
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