Patents, AI, and the Future of Attorney Practice
Patenting AI, software, and the digital future.
Here’s an example of how a single word can make or break your AI patent claim. During my epi webinar “Patenting AI-Related Inventions” yesterday, I discussed a case study involving L’Oréal’s famous patent application EP 4 000 000. Claim 1 was a runtime method directed at using a machine learning model to estimate the skin … Read more
AI patents are on the rise but many researchers and inventors still believe that “software isn’t patentable”. I’ll shed some light on this in the epi webinar Patenting AI-Related Inventions this Wednesday: Please join me on Wednesday, 27 April 2026 at 10am CET. More information and registration on the webinar webpage. Hope this helps!Bastian
Every year, when the preview of the new EPO Guidelines are released, I do the same thing: I open the PDF and immediately CTRL+F for “Artificial Intelligence”. The preview of the Guidelines due to enter into force on 1 April 2026 are all about stability, liabilitym and the “human in the loop”. Here’s my summary: … Read more
In my recent livestream, we walked through two exciting new patents from OpenAI. Here’s a quick recap of what makes these patents worth your attention. Custom GPTs — Building Tailored AI Models The first patent is titled “Systems and Methods for Generating Customized AI Models” (US 12,406,207 B2). It’s the patent behind OpenAI’s Custom GPTs … Read more
Artificial intelligence is reshaping whole industries, and with that comes a pressing question: how do we protect AI-driven innovations through patents? On 5 March 2025, I hosted the Patenting AI Masterclass, where we dove deep into the challenges and strategies of patenting artificial intelligence. It was an engaging session with patent professionals from law firms … Read more
I received a fantastic question from a newsletter reader that I’m sure many of you have pondered: Does the problem or the solution need to be technical in a European patent? The short answer? Both! In the European Patent Office (EPO), securing a software patent requires a technical solution to a technical problem. The EPO’s … Read more
Imagine a factory where human operators control production devices. The system monitors each operator’s performance and restricts access based on their productivity. The idea is to prevent low-performing operators from causing further decreases in the system’s efficiency. This idea forms the basis of European patent application No. 14879893.7. But does such a system involve an … Read more
If you draft patents for AI innovations, you must pay close attention to this new decision by the European Patent Office. The central question: The case centered on a method for controlling continuous chromatography using a “trained and validated mathematical model”. The Board of Appeal revoked the patent, finding the claims unclear. The main arguments: … Read more
The world of augmented reality (AR) took an interesting turn recently when Magic Leap, a leading player in AR technology, lost a European patent covering biometric information sharing on its AR headset. The European Patent Office (EPO) Board of Appeal revoked the patent entirely, ruling that the claimed invention was merely an administrative scheme rather … Read more
This article explores some of OpenAI’s recently published patents and patent applications, shedding light on their innovative approaches to training speech recognition models and iteratively editing text with chatbots. From leveraging weakly supervised training on large datasets to refining methods for generating and editing text, these filings reveal OpenAI’s strategies for tackling complex AI challenges. … Read more