Plan opens the floodgates for AI patenting—causes patent thickets that turns innovation

Erica Fraser-- Associate Professor Carleton, University of Edinburg, “Computers as Inventors---Legal and Policy Implications of Artificial Intelligence on Patent Law”, 322-323. 2016.

The development of inventive AI technologies could cause a flood of patent applications, whether for the individual results or for broader classes of inventions.152 As a result, innovation could be stifled as anyone working in the field would need to obtain licenses for numerous patents.153 It also raises the spectre of patent thickets developing, where certain entities who possess the resources to obtain countless patents have the savvy to recognise this new fertile ground, thereby concentrating legal and economic power within particular fields or markets.154 Either way, potential innovators could have little freedom to operate or be faced with paying prohibitively expensive licensing fees. Moreover, as discussed earlier with respect to the filing of computer-generated patent texts, it is unlikely that already-taxed patent offices would have the resources to effectively process such a flood of applications, resulting in delays and possibly the issuance of lower-quality patents.155