Allows Big Tech to colonize whole sectors—crushes startups
Summerfield ’18 [Mark Summerfield, patent attorney and former Special Counsel, Watermark Intellectual Asset Management, “The Impact of Machine Learning on Patent Law, Part 1: Can a Computer ‘Invent’?” PATENTOLOGY, 1—13—18, https://blog.patentology.com.au/2018/01/the-impact-of-machine-learning-on.html, accessed 5-1-24]
The potential consequences could be very different in other fields of technology. For the global tech giants, in particular, it may be a short step from computerised invention to machines that also generate the documentation necessary to file for patent protection. Automated patent generators capable of monopolising large areas of technology could become a reality within the decade. If the primary legal barrier to this development is a requirement that an inventor be human, becoming the first, and possibly only, country to permit machine-generated patents to be granted may not turn out to be in Australia’s [our] best interests.