The European Patent Office’s (EPO) Boards of Appeal (BoA) are on a mission: slash their case backlog even further. After successfully reducing cases older than 30 months below 10% in early 2024, they promptly set a new, tougher target in their annual report 2024: no more than 10% of pending cases older than 24 months … Read more
As the year draws to a close, I want to take a moment to thank you for being part of my journey in 2024. Whether we worked together on an exciting patent project, connected over this newsletter, or simply stayed in touch, your trust and engagement mean the world to me. It’s because of innovators … Read more
The European Patent Institute (epi) has just introduced new guidelines on the use of generative AI for all European patent attorneys. As artificial intelligence continues to reshape our profession, these guidelines serve as a critical framework to ensure we continue prioritizing professional integrity, confidentiality, and the interests of our clients. This article breaks down key … Read more
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 … Read more
Can one patent DeFi in Europe? Well, you can’t patent the idea of providing financial services on public blockchains with smart contracts, because the fact that this enables financial transactions without a central regulatory entity is not a technical effect, but a business-related one.
One question I get a lot lately is: “Now that we have G1/19, will it be more difficult to get software patents in Europe?” My answer: Probably yes, at least in the short term. Here’s why.
Yesterday I was searching for an interesting patent to discuss in my next Software Patent Review. When I saw that Google’s DeepMind very recently received a European patent on “Reinforcement learning with pseudo-counts“, I knew the search was over.
What’s the point of the patent?
The patent covers a reinforcement learning technique which selects actions for a mechanical agent with a neural network that is trained with a pseudo-count method.
It combines bonus rewards (which are inversely proportional to pseudo-counts derived from a sequential density model) with actual rewards that resulted from the agent performing actions.
The combined rewards are then used to train the neural network to select actions to be performed by the agent.
What is it good for?
According to the patent, the neural network incentivizes the agent to explore the environment more thoroughly, e.g., encouraging the agent to explore observations that have not been observed frequently.
The training of the neural network with pseudo-counts is said to reduce computational time and resources required to select actions for the agent to explore the environment.
Direct link with physical reality, anyone?
A look into the prosecution history reveals an interesting detail: In the original filing, DeepMind tried to cover the reinforcement learning technique in the context of both a physical and a virtual embodiment:
a mechanical agent (e.g. a robot) which interacts with a real-world environment
a software agent which interacts with a simulated environment (e.g. a video game)
But if you’ve seen me talk about G1/19 and the EPO’s current stance on AI patents, you will have guessed that the European patent was only granted after DeepMind limited the claims to the robot embodiment. The granted claims require that “the agent is a mechanical agent and the environment is a real-world environment”.
I guess this patent is a good example of the fact that the EPO currently refuses to grant patents on core AI innovations, but only grants them when the invention is applied to a (traditional) technical context.
Direct link with physical reality, anyone?
Fun fact: The US family member has been pending since 2018 without any action from the USPTO. DeepMind also filed family member patents in China and Japan.
Clients ask me all the time why the EPO makes a distinction between innovations in core AI (non-technical) and applied AI (potentially patentable). So I made this video.
If you wanted to patent the shape of a technical component generated by an AI system, what kind of justification would you need to give for that particular choice of geometry? Do you need to be able to explain why the AI system came to that particular output? Find out in this video.
