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A.I. Patents

Advances in artificial intelligence suggest that computers will soon be able to invent everything, which may block human invention efforts and stifle human creativity.

With a nod to that in the music industry, two musicians developed an algorithm that was able to create every possible MIDI melody in existence, and then copyrighted the whole thing and released it to the public as open source. Meanwhile, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has ruled that A.I. systems cannot be credited as an inventor in a patent under current law.

This raises the conundrum that some A.I.-generated inventions may not be patentable at all, which could stifle future A.I. innovations. That said, world patent and intellectual property bureaucracies and organizations are avidly studying and debating the issues.