Artificial intelligence and patentability: statement from the EPO

Recent years have seen a rapid expansion of artificial intelligence (AI). AI affects almost every aspect of daily life and challenges traditional approaches. AI is able to match or even exceed human capability in many areas. As a result, AI is playing a significant role in creative activities and, in fact, drastically changing the nature of creative processes. It stretches the boundaries of creativity and may deliver significant benefits to the way humans and computers interact.

Inventions involving AI may be applied as modern tools to create artworks in a fraction of the time required using traditional techniques. The European Patent Convention provides the legal basis for the EPO’s activities and the granting of patents for inventions in many fields of technology in which AI is capable of technical application. Such fields include medical devices, the automotive sector, aerospace, industrial control, additive manufacturing, and communication/media technology.

The EPO has responded to the emergence of AI by refining its approach to patentability of inventions. AI is considered a branch of computer science, and therefore, inventions involving AI are considered "computer-implemented inventions" (CII). Patents may be granted when AI leaves the abstract realm of mathematical algorithms and computational models and is applied to solve a technical problem in a field of technology.

The application of AI in today's world poses significant challenges for intellectual property protection. The EPO, as the world's leading patent office, is demonstrating that it is agile and responsive to this change.