Artificial Intelligence (AI) is truly revolutionizing industries throughout the world, bringing in new heights of efficiency and unparalleled opportunities. AI shapes businesses’ operations-from revolutionizing healthcare with advanced diagnostic tools to promoting financial technologies by intelligent algorithms. The very exciting developments come at a critical need for patent-based IP (intellectual property) rights for protecting AI innovations. In India, AI patents are an emerging and yet, very complex area of law that has distinct challenges because of how the inventions in AI were made and how Indian patent law is still developing with time.
AI and Patent Law in India: At a Very Complex Crossroad
The Indian patent system governs Indian Patents Act, 1970. Section 3(k) contains a provision that excludes certain subject matters from being patentable. Specifically, this section prohibits patents for “mathematical methods, business methods, computer programs per se, and algorithms.” Indeed, as many AI inventions depend on intricate algorithms and machine learning models, a host of AI technologies will probably find applicability under this exclusion.
Yet, the Indian Patent Office issued its Computer-Related Inventions (CRI) Guidelines in 2017. These guidelines provide the basis to test computer-related inventions, including AI-based technologies, and make room for considering patenting AI innovations with a “technical contribution” and “technical effect.”
In India, an AI invention has to satisfy the conventional standard of novelty, inventive step, and industrial applicability to be patentable. It should further provide a “technical effect”, which could be in the form of a tangible advantage like improved efficiency or speed, or a less tangible benefit like optimization of resources. Such enunciations of patentability indicate that inventions that work purely on algorithms but do not add an ingredient from outside might be finding it difficult to get patent protection.
With the Growth and Evolution of AI Patenting in India
The patent filings in AI have gained momentum worldwide, indicating, among others, that AI innovation has been galloping across industries. The AI patent scenario in India is still in its infancy; however, since the year 2020, something palpable in growth has commenced. This jump in patent filings could very well be the result of the advancements in digital technologies and an increasing emphasis being put into AI-driven solutions in healthcare, finance, education, and transportation.
Certain technological areas in India seem to be the focus of patent applications for AI. Indeed, the healthcare industry can claim to be the leading contender for the world’s first AI patent. Major sub-fields include diagnostic technology, telemedicine, and predictive health analytics. New concepts for innovative health solutions arose amid pressing demands created by the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw an increase in telemedicine and remote diagnostics-linked AI patent filings.
Regardless of the legal challenges, there is an increasing realization among Indian innovators about the importance of patenting their AI innovations to gain protection against their competitors, as with any thus protecting their intellectual-property rights.
Legal Challenges Faced in AI Patents Within India
The interesting question is that India is faced with certain different kinds of legal challenges concerning the practice of patenting of AI. The foremost source of hindrance to this patenting of AI is Section 3(k), being an exception to patentability for mathematical methods, algorithms, and computer programs. This exception thus puts AI inventions, particularly those concerning algorithms or data models, into a grey area; hence securing patent protection becomes a difficult task.
A second aspect is the question of determining inventorship. Conventional patent laws reckon with human inventors, but with the birth of inventions generated by the AI, the question arises whether the AI might rank as an inventor. While some jurisdictions, like that of South Africa, accept the notion of AI as an inventor, India has not yet modified its legal framework to accommodate this new realization, leaving a lot of ambiguity on the attribution of inventorship to such AI-generated inventions..
Establishing the condition of “technical effect” for AI inventions, however, can be complicated. Very often, AI technologies, especially those that are abstract algorithms or data driven, do not yield immediate or tangible technical effects. This adds to the complication in the patent examination process so that patent examiners should determine the extent to which an invention affords a clear and measurable benefit in terms of efficiency, speed, or resource optimization.
Path Forward: Guidelines on Computer-Based Inventions and Associated AI Patents
The CRIs work as guidelines for patentability of AI in India since therein it is specified that only such AI inventions as are capable of making a technical contribution will be able to obtain patent protection, that is, medical devices that require some hardware or AI robotics would be more readily considered as patentable subjects.
The aspects of the CRI Guidelines that are applicable to inventions involving AI are as follows:
Technical Contribution: The AI invention has to go beyond simple algorithms finding technical contributions in a system or device that is tangible in nature, for example, a healthcare diagnostic tool or automated robots.
Hardware-Software Integration: Inventions that integrate AI algorithms with purpose-specific hardware are more likely to be patentable because they demonstrate real-world applications.
Avoidance of Pure Algorithm Claims: AI inventions claiming an abstract algorithm without concrete application in the real world would typically face rejection. For an invention to qualify for a patent, it has to be applicable to a physical system or process.
Still Another View of AI Patent Sectoral Trends in India
Some of the industries that have gathered a lot of attention in the AI patent area in India include:
Healthcare: AI-powered innovations in diagnostics, medical imaging, and predictive analytics are on the rise. AI-enabled tools that improve disease detection and assist remote healthcare solutions are being increasingly appealed in patent filings.
Image Processing and Computer Vision: AI-powered image processing technologies, such as facial recognition and object detection, are much in vogue, especially in the contexts of security and surveillance.
Transport and Autonomous Vehicles: AI technologies pertinent to autonomous vehicles, traffic management, and logistics optimization are being patented, especially as India moves toward cleaner and more efficient modes of transport.
EdTech: Innovation in AI within adaptive learning platforms and personalized content delivery during online education drives patent activity in the education sector.
FinTech and IoT: Marketed with AI solutions for finance, such as algorithmic trading and fraud detection, AI-Internet of Things applications have come to the spotlight, such as those for smart agriculture and smart home automation.
Comparative Analysis: AI Patents in India with the Global Best
Due to this, India and a few others, viz., the U.S. and European Union, are engaged in formulating AI-centric patent guidelines to evaluate inventions. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), for instance, emphasizes the “practical application” of AI; conversely, the European Patent Office (EPO) accepts the patenting of computer-implemented inventions that provide an additional “technical effect.” In India, the absence of special guidelines that would help or steer the patent offices in the evaluation of AI inventions causes considerable amounts of inconsistency within the examination and creates further obscurities with respect to the acceptance of AI technologies under patent protection.
Conclusion: The Road Ahead for AI Patents in India
AI’s potential for reinventing industries is beyond question and therefore needs to be secured under patent systems to create safeguards for growth and further technological advancements. The legal developments in India concerning AI patents have been gradual, with some good progress done through patent filings, especially in sectors like healthcare and transportation. However, to align itself with the pace of the globe, India needs to draft more detailed guidelines on patents concerning AI inventions, focusing on unsolved issues like technical effect, inventorship, and algorithm-based inventions. With changes underway to adapt to a changing legal paradigm, it appears that the domain of AI patents in India would soon be more favorable for innovation and protection of intellectual property in this exciting area.
