Artificial intelligence (AI) is a frequently patented technology.
In a report by the USPTO, "Inventing AI Tracing the diffusion of artificial intelligence with U.S. patents," there was an analysis of the “volume, nature, and evolution of AI and its component technologies as contained in U.S. patents from 1976 through 2018.”
Between 2010 to 2018 each year there were about 40,000 to 60,000 patent applications filed for some form of AI technology.
Per the USPTO, AI technology falls into eight categories:
1. Planning/control:
- Defined by the USPTO as technology to “identify, create, and execute activities to achieve specified goals”
- An example is technology to “help to reduce costly workflow analyses when abnormal conditions occur in processing plants. The invention describes a method for detecting potential problems through visual, sound or other environmental conditions and uses an expert system to identify and address those problems.” (U.S. Patent No. 10,031,490, issued to Fisher-Rosemount Systems Inc.)
- Approximately 40,000 patent applications filed per year from 2015-2018 for planning/control AI technology
2. Knowledge processing:
- Defined by the USPTO as technology to “representing and deriving facts about the world and using this information in automated systems”
- An example is technology for “real-time error detection for online income tax preparation” (U.S. Patent No. 7,685,082, issued to the financial software company Intuit Inc.)
- Approximately 37,000 patent applications filed per year from 2015-2018 for knowledge processing AI technology
3. AI hardware:
- Defined by the USPTO as the technology of physical computer components to handle the increased computing requirements for modern AI algorithms
- An example is technology of "a device for efficient information processing that mimics synapses between biological neurons analogous to a biological brain" (U.S. Patent No. 8,892,487, issued to IBM Corp.)
- Approximately 17,000 patent applications filed per year from 2015-2018 for AI hardware technology
4. Vision:
- Defined by the USPTO as technology which “extracts and understands information from images and videos”
- An example is technology which "automates the detection of abnormalities in images taken during colonoscopies" (U.S. Patent No. 10,055,843, issued to the Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research and to Arizona State University)
- Approximately 15,000 patent applications filed per year from 2015-2018 for vision AI technology
5. Machine learning:
- Defined by the USPTO as technology of “a broad class of computational models that learn from data”
- An example is technology which is an "algorithm to optimize an e-commerce platform by classifying product descriptions, reviews, and other product features using crowdsourcing to resolve ambiguous results" (U.S. Patent 9,390,378, issued to retailer Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.)
- Approximately 7,000 patent applications filed per year from 2015-2018 for machine learning AI technology
6. Natural language processing:
- Defined by the USPTO as technology of “[u]nderstanding and using data encoded in written language”
- An example is technology which "uses text to build an ontology by simulating various human memory approaches. The resulting ontology can be used to increase the efficiency of various healthcare administrative tasks such as assigning billing codes to clinical records" (U.S. Patent No. 8,930,178, issued to the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center)
- Approximately 5,000 patent applications filed per year from 2015-2018 for natural language processing AI technology
7. Speech:
- Defined by the USPTO as technology of “[s]peech recognition includes techniques to understand a sequence of words given an acoustic signal”
- An example is technology which "answers articulated questions and responds to spoken commands" (U.S. Patent No. 10,043,516, issued to Apple Inc.)
- Approximately 3,000 patent applications filed per year from 2015-2018 for speech AI technology
8. Evolutionary computation:
- Defined by the USPTO as technology that “contains a set of computational routines using aspects of nature and, specifically, evolution”
- An example is technology which is a "computerized method evaluates a large number of competing models and selects the model with the highest performance by using a genetically inspired algorithm that “mutates” through different options" (U.S. Patent No. 7,657,494, issued to the oil and gas company Chevron USA Inc.)
- Approximately 2,000 patent applications filed per year from 2015-2018 for evolutionary computation AI technology
Source:
Inventing AI Tracing the diffusion of artificial intelligence with U.S. patents, OFFICE OF THE CHIEF ECONOMIST IP DATA HIGHLIGHTS Number 5, October 2020