The Artificial Inventor: A challenge for the Patent System

The Artificial Intelligence (AI) revolution, in its different manifestations -expert systems, neural networks, intelligent hybrid systems, etc.- brings with it many technological advances. Although this technology has so far been used primarily as a tool to streamline tasks performed by humans, the "Artificial Invention Age" has already begun to be discussed; an era in which collaboration between humans and machines becomes a key point, the former being in charge of detecting the problem and specifying it and the latter of generating, simulating and evaluating possible solutions. In fact, it is already a certainty that advanced AI systems are capable of achieving innovative and unpredictable results in an independent and autonomous way, without following any human instruction, and inventions made by Artificial Intelligent Agents (AIAs) can already be seen today. Thus, AIAs are no longer mere instruments at the service of the human being to become the true players of the inventive process or, at least, essential entities to reach patentable results.