What do patent lawyers need to know about artificial invention?

Patent law reflects the manual inventive processes that inventors have used throughout the ages. The law, therefore, is already starting to break down in the face of automated inventing. We see this as patent law continues to grapple with computer software – the earliest kind of automated invention (programmers write code which a computer translates automatically into working software). The Genie in the Machine explains how the current problems with software patents can be understood as symptoms of the law’s failure to accommodate artificial invention technology more generally, and how we can reform patent law to address all of these problems so that the law continues to promote innovation in the Artificial Invention Age.  more