An article reporting that Antonio Campinos, President of the European Patent Office (EPO), stated that the increasing number of AI-related inventions is “posing new challenges” to the patent system was also covered by major Japanese media outlets.
However, the reports did not clearly distinguish between two fundamentally different issues: the growing number of AI-related inventions and the question of inventions autonomously generated by AI.
The former concerns inventions that incorporate AI technology or inventions relating to AI technology itself. The latter concerns a much more fundamental issue—how patent systems should deal with inventions created autonomously by AI in light of the long-established principle that an inventor must be a human being.
In my view, President Campinos was referring primarily to this latter issue, which goes to the very foundation of the patent system, rather than merely to the increase in AI-related inventions.
Countries that continue to avoid addressing this issue through legislative or policy measures risk falling behind in the global innovation landscape. While I have my own views on possible legal solutions, I will refrain from discussing them here at this stage.