Episode 20

In recent years, the number of AI-related patent applications has increased, and the rate of patent grants has also risen (https://www.jpo.go.jp/system/patent/gaiyo/sesaku/ai/document/ai_shutsugan_chosa/hokoku.pdf).
The Japan Patent Office has published a total of 25 AI-related cases in Annexes A and B of the Patent and Utility Model Examination Handbook (https://www.jpo.go.jp/system/laws/rule/guideline/patent/document/ai_jirei/jirei.pdf).
By the way, AI-related inventions are one type of software-related invention. In order to prepare a specification that can be used to effectively enforce your rights, you must first accurately grasp the technical content of the invention and prepare it in accordance with the basics of preparing specifications for software-related inventions (see "Historical Background of the 'Examination Standards for Software'" stored in the reference materials (https://sophia-ip.jp/en/reference-materials/)).
If you enforce your rights with an insufficiently written specification, the patent will be dismissed in a patent infringement lawsuit on the grounds that it is invalid (Article 104-3, Paragraph 1 of the Patent Act). It is particularly important to meet the support requirement (Article 36, Paragraph 6, Item 1 of the same Act).
Regarding this support requirement, the Intellectual Property High Court has ruled that "Whether the statement of the claims meets the support requirement of the specification should be determined by comparing the statement of the claims with the statement of the detailed description of the invention, and by examining whether the invention stated in the claims is the invention stated in the detailed description of the invention, and whether it is within a scope that a person skilled in the art would recognize from the statement of the detailed description of the invention that the problem of the invention can be solved, and whether it is within a scope that a person skilled in the art would recognize that the problem of the invention can be solved in light of the common general technical knowledge at the time of filing, even without that statement or suggestion. It is reasonable to interpret that the burden of proof for the existence of the support requirement of the specification lies with the patent applicant or patent holder." (Intellectual Property High Court Grand Panel Decision, Case No. 10042 of 2005 (Gyo-Ke), November 11, 2005).
In the case of software-related inventions, what is protected by patent law is the software algorithm (https://sophia-ip.jp/en/features-of-our-office/). The algorithm is expressed as a flowchart.
However, some patent applications for software-related inventions do not include a flowchart. This is likely because the writer of the specification does not understand the technical content of the invention or does not understand the basics of writing specifications for software-related inventions.
Since what is protected by patent law is the software algorithm, a flowchart should be selected as the [selected figures] in the abstract. However, there are many patent applications in which drawings other than a flowchart are selected.
By checking whether a flowchart is selected as the [selected figures] in the abstract, you can easily distinguish the quality of a patent specification for software-related inventions, including AI-related inventions.