Patent Office Chief Designates Pro-AI Decision as Precedential

US Patent and Trademark Office Director John Squires marked as precedential a decision reversing one of an appeals board legal grounds for declaring a Google DeepMind machine learning patent invalid.

The move sets in stone Squires’ approach that found the AI-related patent qualified as patent eligible under Section 101 of the Patent Act, underscoring what attorneys said was a pro-AI innovation push from the director. The patent was ultimately rejected as obvious in light of earlier inventions, but Squires’ Sept. 26 decision stressed that other standards of patentability, such as non-obviousness and novelty, were better suited to evaluate patent protection. ...