Updates to UKIPO AI Guidelines - 30 January 2025
The UKIPO have once again updated their guidance for examining patent applications relating to AI inventions following the recent Court of Appeal judgment in Emotional Perception AI Ltd v Comptroller-General of Patents [2024] EWCA Civ 825.
In particular, the updated guidelines define a “program for a computer” as a set of instructions for a computer to do something, which is not limited to programs for digital computers and encompasses programs for artificial neural networks (ANNs). The guidance thus confirms that an ANN is a computer, and the weights and biases of an ANN are a computer program. Therefore, an ANN implemented invention should be treated like other computer-implemented inventions.
The latest changes to the guidance also include labelling scenarios 13 to 15 as excluded subject-matter, undoing the previous changes to these scenarios after the High Court judgment (reported in our earlier article here).
For now, it seems that the UKIPO will be treating ANN implemented inventions in the same way as other computer implemented inventions – i.e. applying the same “technical contribution” requirements and using the AT&T signposts for guidance. However, this may all be subject to change as Emotional Perception heads to the Supreme Court, as reported in our earlier article here. We will have to wait and see!
