Litigation ensures the patent office is overstretched

An immediate logistical challenge is that of accommodating a growing volume of patent applications as thinking machines, with their ability to learn and the harnessing of low cost, high power computing, generate increasing numbers of patentable inventions. In 2015 the USPTO received 629,647 patent applications and granted 325,979 patents, almost double the applications received and grants made in 2000.71 The volume of both patent applications and patents granted continues to grow, and an expansion of thinking machines in the process is likely to fuel even faster growth. Higher volumes of patent applications will negatively impact the speed of prosecution, the quality of screening and evaluation, and the ability of the USPTO to maintain and search prior art databases. In addition to volume, the nature and complexity of the inventions could change, and the process by which inventions are discovered will change. Differences in the invention process could create difficulties in applying existing USPTO patent application examination and search procedures to evaluate machine-generated inventions. Greater technical understanding may be required to evaluate inventions generated by computers that have massive computational abilities and databases to draw upon. Thinking machines may be capable of generating results that are beyond the understanding of the people charged with evaluating them, requiring careful thought about whether to add new subject matter categories and new metrics for determining patentability. The thinking machine paradigm will require both familiarity with the nature of the machine processes and the ability to understand, interpret, and compare the claimed results. Finally, administrative requirements such as the requirement that the application be made by the inventor and include an oath from the inventor that he or she is the original inventor, and the requirement on applicants to disclose all information material to patentability, will need to be rethought where the invention is generated by a machine rather than a human inventor.72