Decision on the role of AI in the complaints procedure

To what ext­ent can AI such as ChatGPT be used for ques­ti­ons on the inter­pre­ta­ti­on of fea­tures or inven­ti­ve step?

This recent T‑decision (T ¹¹⁹³⁄₂₃) of the Euro­pean Patent Office, in which Bös­herz Goe­bel Patent­an­wäl­te were invol­ved as repre­sen­ta­ti­ves, now cla­ri­fies (machi­ne trans­la­ti­on):

“The gene­ral­ly incre­asing spread and use of chat­bots based on lan­guage models (”lar­ge lan­guage models“) and/​or ”arti­fi­ci­al intel­li­gence“ alo­ne does not jus­ti­fy the assump­ti­on that an ans­wer recei­ved […] neces­s­a­ri­ly cor­rect­ly reflects the under­stan­ding of the per­son skil­led in the respec­ti­ve tech­ni­cal field (at the rele­vant time)”

(see decis­i­on text)

The EPO Board of Appeal empha­si­zes that appro­pria­te tech­ni­cal lite­ra­tu­re must be con­sul­ted ins­tead for the cor­rect inter­pre­ta­ti­on of patent claims. In this case, the ques­ti­on was whe­ther ChatGPT ans­wers could be used to inter­pret the term – an approach that the Board cle­ar­ly rejec­ted.

This decis­i­on is a first, important land­mark for the limits of AI use in patent pro­cee­dings and under­lines the con­tin­ued importance of sound tech­ni­cal exper­ti­se.