Very soon, the patent attorney profession will be disrupted by conversational language models. Any doubts? Then please listen to this interview with DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman. It’s such a fascinating first-hand perspective on the journey from AI beating humankind in chess, then in Go, and now folding proteins beyond levels experts would have thought possible a moment ago. The recent...
Where AI inventions happen

In this week’s live Q&A on LinkedIn, the question came up when, where and how patentable AI innovations actually happen today. In this article, I’ll try to unpack the notion of AI patents from different angles, showcasing the immense impact of AI on the invention landscape today. By the way, if you’ve missed the live Q&A on LinkedIn, I’ve put the recording on my...
Software patents in Europe (presentation slides)

It’s all about the technical contribution, but what exactly is “technical” at the European Patent Office? Is it “technical” when engineers solve hard industrial problems with AI? These and other questions were the topic of my presentation for the patent working group of Bayern Innovativ on 11 May 2023. It was a great honor to share my two cents after another great...
Patents in the Metaverse

This episode is a recording of a presentation I was giving on 29 March 2023 on patents in the Metaverse at the 7th WIPO Conversation on Intellectual Property and the Metaverse. The WIPO Conversations are a forum to facilitate discussion about the impact of so-called “frontier technologies” on IP, including (obviously) artificial intelligence. The topic of my presentation was “Patenting platforms...
Patenting the Metaverse

The Metaverse as a borderless virtual world encompassing work, play, entertainment, and more, is the next evolution of the Internet as we know it. It’s a real opportunity to drive economic growth and bring its benefits to everyone, everywhere. With digitalization going forward, there’s no doubt that IP will be one of the key drivers in this field. I recently had the pleasure of speaking about...
Blockchain, web3 & IP: what the heck?

I learned so much about IP in the Metaverse and Web3 on a panel discussion in Paris the other day, thanks to my awesome co-panelists. We covered the different facets of IP in the digital space, looked into some innovative blockchain users like Bernstein.io and Binded, and even new licensing models made possible by platforms like IPwe and its Blockchain Smart Pool with over 1,200 nChain patent...
I’m giving away my presentation slides
Why patent strategy MUST be rooted in economics
Just in case it has slipped your mind: Patent strategy must always be rooted in economics. I’d love to share Prof. Dr. Alexander J. Wurzer’s recent IP Management Nugget, which is a great reminder that a smart patenting approach requires identifying the payment stream generated from the use of the IP. I see it all the time that companies have a hard time figuring out what the IP...
Digital patent infringement w/ Thomas Gniadek

Is it really so difficult to enforce digital patents? I sat down with my patent litigator friend Thomas Gniadek and learned a lot about digital patent infringement. Thomas shared several first-hand tips for how to prove that a software patent is infringed. Topics we talked about: Software patent litigation in Germany: Does the strategy differ when software is involved? How can you prove that the...
AI patents in Europe: grant rate rising, but still below average

If you’re a numbers person, you will love Haseltine Lake Kemper’s recent article From Filing to Opposition: What are the Statistics on Artificial Intelligence (AI) – Patents & Applications at the EPO. The author Frances Wilding presents very interesting statistics about European patent applications in IPC class G06N (the class stands for “computer systems based on specific...