AI Patent Law Shift on the Horizon? Latest Update on the Emotional Perception AI Case

EPAI had applied for a UK patent for its system, which it alleged is capable of providing media file (including music) recommendations to users in an improved way. This is via the use of Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs).

ANNs are the backbone of the machine learning systems on which modern artificial intelligence systems are based.

In this instance, EPAI developed an ANN which could provide media file recommendations to a user, based on the file’s physical properties, rather than relying on categories identified by humans.

EPAI applied to the UK Intellectual Property Office (‘IPO’) to patent this ANN.

The IPO’s hearing officer deemed the system as a whole to be a computer program.

Unless computer programs demonstrate a technical effect or make a technical contribution, they are excluded under section 1(2)(c) of the Patents Act 1977.

Here, the hearing officer did not regard the system’s provision of “semantically similar file recommendations” to be of a technical nature, rendering it incapable of being granted a patent.  

The head of the IPO appealed the High Court’s decision to the Court of Appeal, which allowed the appeal and restored the original decision of the IPO.

The Court of Appeal concluded that ANNs do in fact constitute computer programs, with the tool compromising of a set of instructions for a computer to do something, making it a computer program.

Moreover, as the contribution made by EPAI’s system was semantic, cognitive or aesthetic, as opposed to technical, it does not fall within the “technical exception” under section 1(2)(c).

The Court of Appeal’s decision led to the IPO issuing new guidance and suspending the changes made following the High Court’s ruling.