Machines have been autonomously generating creative and innovative works for decades. Now, advances in computer science are poised to take such machines from novelties to major drivers of economic growth. This automation of knowledge work will have profound impact, not just on innovation, but in areas ranging from employment dynamics to taxation. It is also going to change the way we grant intellectual property. In some cases, a computer’s output constitutes subject matter traditionally eligible for intellectual property protection, but a computer rather than a person meets the requirements for authorship or inventorship. Worldwide, very few legislatures and courts have given serious consideration to this issue. In the United States, the Copyright Office has required “Human Authorship” since at least 1984, while the Patent and Trademark Office has no policy at all. Yet the Copyright Office made a mistake. Permitting computer authorship and inventorship is consistent with the rationale for granting intellectual property protection—it will incentivize innovation and it will protect moral rights. More difficult questions will be raised once creative computers become standard in a field. Such machines will require a rethinking of the entire intellectual property system.

Inventive machines and the future of innovation in the chemical arts

256th National Meeting (2018)

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