人工智能对发明人制度的挑战及应对策略

The Challenge of Artificial Intelligence to the Inventor System and Its Countermeasures

人工智能生成发明并非自然人发明,以其为主题申请专利时客观上难以填写“发明人”,这给以“自然人发明”为核心的专利制度带来严峻挑战。为了避免申请人将自然人作为人工智能生成发明的发明人之乱象发生,有必要适当调整发明人制度和现行专利申请规则。按照专利法基本原理,填写发明人作为专利申请人的义务,其目的并非限制发明人署名权的行使,而是为了维护发明人对其发明创造所应享有的精神权利和经济利益。因人工智能不具备法律主体资格,故无法作为适格的发明人。为了保障发明人正当行使署名权的自由,从法律规则的可操作性视角,可以不再强制要求专利申请人在申请文件中填写发明人,进而从专利法律制度层面解决人工智能生成发明申请专利过程中填写发明人的实践难题。

With the fact that artificial intelligence-generated inventions are not inventions of natural persons,it is difficult to fill in the“inventor”when filing patent applications based on them,which brings severe challenges to the current patent system with“inventions of natural persons”as its core.In order to avoid the chaos of applicants regarding natural persons as inventors for artificial intelligence-generated inventions,it is necessary to appropriately adjust the inventor system and respective patent application rules.In accordance with the basic principles of the patent law,the legal requirement of filling in the“inventor”as patent applicant is not to limit the inventor s exercise of the authorship right,but to protect the moral rights and economic benefits that the inventor should enjoy for his or her inventions and creations.To cope with the dilemma that artificial intelligence cannot be a legitimate inventor due to its lack of qualifications of a legal subject,it should be no longer mandatory to require patent applicants to fill in the inventors in the application documents.This way can solve the practical problem of filling in inventor in the process of patent application for artificial intelligence-generated inventions and ensure the freedom of inventors to properly exercise the right of authorship.