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South Africa Grants World’s First-Ever Patent with AI as Inventor

Inventions created by Artificial Intelligence (AI) are the next big thing in the field of innovation. The question, “To whom can a patent be granted for AI inventions?” has been a part of many debates for a pretty long period now. Surprisingly and interestingly, South Africa has recently become the world’s first-ever nation to grant a patent that names AI as its inventor. It has also named the AI’s owner as the owner of the patent invention.

The patent has been secured by the University of Surrey’s professor, Ryan Abbott, and his team. They faced several issues with the Patent Offices across the globe over the dire need to recognize AI as the inventor of patented inventions for many years.

All this while, Abbott was representing Dr. Stephen Thaler, who is the creator of an artificial neural system known as ‘Dabus.’ According to Thaler, Dabus is the sole inventor of a food container capable of improving heat transfer and grip.

Since 2018, Abbott, along with his team, has filed Patent Applications listing Dabus as the inventor in more than ten jurisdictions worldwide, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union. Last year, the High Court in Wales and England supported the decision of the UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) by rejecting the patent application. In its final ruling, the Court stated that although Dabus created the inventions, it couldn’t be granted a patent as it wasn’t a natural person. Even the European Patent Office (EPO) and the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) rejected the application on the same grounds.

In a recent statement delivered, the Director of the Institute for People-Centred AI at the University of Surrey, Professor Adrian Hilton, said the world is “moving from an age in which invention was the preserve of people to an era where machines are capable of realizing the inventive step.”

Abbott strongly believes that the current situation in law is no longer fit for purpose and could easily put the investment in AI at huge risk. He also pointed towards the increasing use of AI in research and development (R&D) to come up with new drug compounds and support drug repurposing. In such scenarios, he stated that there could be an invention eligible for securing Patent Protection but not an individual eligible to be an inventor. According to Abbott, if what is written in the previous line means that a patent won’t be granted, then companies like Novartis, Siemens, or DeepMind, all of which are investing in AI, won’t be able to use AI in their respective areas.

Welcoming the decision of South Africa, Abbott said that this outcome indeed showcases an understanding of the utmost importance that lies in motivating people to make, develop, and use AI for generating socially valuable innovations. He further added that this decision would serve as a big example to the rest of the world concerning the use of AI in generating human benefits. For more visit: https://www.trademarkmaldives.com

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PayRange Sues KioSoft Alleging Patent Infringement

PayRange Inc., which is a network for day-to-day purchases, has quite recently filed a lawsuit against KioSoft Technologies LLC, a technology leader in the payments industry since 2002, alleging Patent Infringement. Consequently, PayRange is now looking forward to seeking damages estimated to be over $50 million, along with a permanent injunction barring further infringing sales.

Established and founded in 2013, PayRange proactively developed the original mobile payment system for use in non-networked unattended retail machines, including amusement, laundry, and vending. The company efficiently protects its innovative technology, creative works, and Intellectual Property (IP) portfolio with 18 patents and even more than 35 pending Patent Applications.

At present, PayRange is the market share leader having millions of users and hundreds of thousands of deployed machines. On the other hand, KioSoft Technologies sells mobile payment solutions unlawfully by infringing upon PayRange’s patented technology. PayRange’s patents cover a wide variety of innovations, including the foundational approach of authorizing payment to unconnected machines leveraging the user’s smartphone, firmware updating of offline machines, viewing machine status on smartphones, and retrofitting existing machines along with payment acceptance devices.

Paresh Patel – the founder and CEO of PayRange, has stated in the lawsuit that his company has invested tens of millions of dollars in both research and development for bringing to market the solutions that have revolutionized the industry. He further said that his company shall always vigorously protect its investment to prevent the competitors from selling infringing products.

PayRange’s counsel on this matter, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, filed the Patent Infringement Lawsuit against KioSoft by stating that the company disregarded PayRange’s Patent Rights blatantly by attempting to encroach upon PayRange’s customers with a solicit new business and copycat product. Now, PayRange is looking forward to seeking recovery of damages, which may even exceed $50 million as per the lost profits, royalties, or price erosion, along with a permanent injunction for preventing KioSoft from continuing future infringement by selling, maintaining, and supporting copycat products, for instance, mobile apps.

Founded by Paresh Patel, a veteran of the automated retail industry, PayRange provides operators and customers with convenient and secure mobile payment and loyalty solutions for amusement, laundry, and vending. With even more than 3 million users and a network of machines throughout 350 cities and towns in the US and Canada, PayRange is currently the North American leader in mobile payments for unattended retail. For more visit: https://www.trademarkmaldives.com

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Navarik Wins Patent for Managing Loss Reconciliation Data in Shipping Industry

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has recently issued US Patent No. 10,410,162 to Navarik Corp., a software platform provider to the petroleum supply and trading industry. The patent covers mechanisms for grouping parcels and enabling calculation of losses at the time of shipping.

It is a matter of fact that yes – some loss of cargo is expected in the oil industry during shipping; however, even these small amounts of loss product can lead to a significant loss of revenue. In this scenario, the traditional mechanisms depend on human inspection for tracking these losses and are usually prone to error. Navarik’s patented technology holds immense potential for replacing this unreliable human inspection with validated and automated software tracking. The patent efficiently describes how a company or organization can feed shipping logs into Navarik’s software, and further how that software can both validate and process those logs. Additionally, the patent also describes how the software is capable of grouping parcels for multiple different points of a long journey together to verify that they reflect the same cargo itself at different times of a voyage. Based on the parcel data, the software can then further calculate a loss between those different points for effectively increasing the accuracy of the calculation and removing the need for human intervention.

Based on their initial Patent Application in 2009, the ‘162 Patent is the second patent issued to Navarik. The first patent with US Patent No. 8, 301,517, also corresponds to the mechanisms for grouping parcels. All in all, the ‘517 and ‘162 Patents give Navarik the exclusive rights to its patented technology.

Navarik’s objective is to emerge as the leading provider of technology products for the inspection industries and commodity shipping by leveraging its industry expertise and on-demand software platform. Most of the widely-known oil companies across the globe heavily depend on Navarik’s flagship product, known as Navarik Inspection™, for data intelligence and business process automation. The product helps them significantly in optimizing trade with their counterparties and achieving better performance from their inspection firms, terminals, and vessels. For more visit: https://www.trademarkmaldives.com

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Court Rules against ‘GTA V’ Cheat Makers over Copyright Infringement

England and Wales Intellectual Property Enterprise Court has recently ruled against a pair of cheat developers in association with Epsilon (a former outfit related to GTA games) for infringing on the copyright by coding and selling the software.

The Grand Theft Auto (GTA) games are all about bad behavior for making money. Nevertheless, in the real world, their developer and publisher – Rockstar Games, Inc. and parent Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. – go hard on getting any hint about rules being broken, and thus, all the way to suing cheat app makers for Copyright Infringement.

The recent ruling is in relation to one such legal action that has gone well for the UK Company. It is a summary judgment meaning that the case would not go to trial.

Rockstar’s original Copyright Infringement Application for a summary judgment named five defendants, three of which have settled the case in the meantime. Rest two who chose to try their luck in court though affirmed their involvement with Epsilon, yet made efforts to invalidate the violation argument. They did so by saying that their team provided a disclaimer of liability to users of their cheat for the online gameplay GTA V. Nonetheless, the court said that this was a mere window-dressing.

In general, these cheats are known as the ‘mod menu’ and allow gamers to enjoy several advantages while playing. These sometimes unlock virtual in-game items and currency for which they would otherwise need to pay the real money.

Another thing the defendants said in their defense was that the Epsilon developed its software by forking the already existing code, which is available online. It means they downloaded the source code from a popular and well-known public cheating website. But, the court rejected this argument also and ruled in favor of Rockstar’s claim of violation of the contract against one defendant, dropping the charge against the other because he was a minor when the offense took place.

Although the case won’t go to the trial in association with the copyright charges, the issue related to legal cost may still require a trial. But Justice Falk, who signed the order, said that she hoped the parties would try to settle this matter. For more visit: https://www.trademarkmaldives.com