AmLaw: Can Artificial Intelligence Patents Survive ‘Alice’?
February 9, 2024
O’Melveny lawyers Mark Liang, Paige Hardy, and Grace McFee recently co-authored “Can Artificial Intelligence Patents Survive Alice?”, in which they take a look at how courts have treated AI patents under the current Alice framework.
In the article, they write “AI patents are treated with skepticism and are regularly invalidated under Alice as abstract ideas. They tend to be invalidated for one or more of the following reasons: 1) including too little detail in their claim language, using phrases like ‘neural networks,’ ‘machine learning,’ or even ‘AI’ itself instead of describing how the claimed AI feature works; 2) describing AI as emulating human behavior; or 3) performing math on general purpose computers.”
The authors go on to describe how AI patents are analyzed under each step of the Alice framework, apply the caselaw to a hypothetical set of claims, and lay out how inventors and patent drafters can take steps to reduce the risk of AI patent claims being invalidated as abstract ideas.
Read the article here.
This article is the first of a two-part article. Part two will address how AI patents are treated under Section 112.
This memorandum is a summary for general information and discussion only and may be considered an advertisement for certain purposes. It is not a full analysis of the matters presented, may not be relied upon as legal advice, and does not purport to represent the views of our clients or the Firm. Mark Liang, an O’Melveny partner licensed to practice law in California; Paige Hardy, an O’Melveny associate licensed to practice law in California; and Grace McFee, an O’Melveny associate licensed to practice law in California, contributed to the content of this newsletter. The views expressed in this newsletter are the views of the authors except as otherwise noted.
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