Our trainee Gianluca Maniscotti was honoured as part of the "Premio di Studio LES Italia" (LES Italia Study Award), a competition aimed at awarding two distinct recognitions for bachelor's and doctoral theses focused on the most relevant and innovative topics in intellectual property, in recognition of his work on the impact of Artificial Intelligence on the patent system.
The thesis analyses how AI complements and stimulates the patent system, making it timely to rethink its substantive requirements. From the DABUS case to the recent USPTO guidelines and Article 81 of the EPC, case law converges in viewing AI as a powerful tool and the inventor as always a natural person, thereby confirming the patentability of AI-assisted inventions.
However, the widespread adoption of AI by those skilled in the art inevitably raises the threshold for inventive step (Articles 56 EPC and 48 of the Italian Industrial Property Code) and crowds the prior art, while the opacity of the models undermines the requirement for a sufficient description (Articles 83 EPC and 51 of the Italian Industrial Property Code). To effectively protect their inventions, inventors must therefore carefully document the human contribution, describe the datasets and parameters necessary for reproducibility, and assess inventive step in light of the AI tools actually in use in the industry.
Licensing Executives Society (LES) is an international non-profit association operating in the fields of corporate law, industrial property, and the licensing of technology, trademarks, and copyrightable works. LES Italia is the Italian group of the Licensing Executives Society, counting over 500 members representing major companies, industrial and research organizations, as well as law and patent firms.