27 Artificial Intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing the way things are done in many fields, including agriculture. However, the effect of AI on how to draft an agricultural patent is much less dramatic. A patent can be granted in four categories: device; system (a collection of devices working in concert); method; and composition of matter. Compositions per se are unchanged by AI so we don’t need to consider them here. With regard to the other three categories, the claimed invention needs to be (I) novel and (II) inventive, (III) be directed to statutory subject matter, and (IV) be fully enabled by the patent application as filed. (I) Novel and (II) inventive are easy to understand. Novelty means there needs to be one feature of the claimed invention that is new when compared to any single prior publication. Inventive means that the claimed invention, taken as a whole, must be non-obvious with respect to all prior publications considered as a group. Typically these are the things that make an inventor decide to file a patent application, but novelty and inventiveness alone are not sufficient to get a patent granted. It is important to remember that by the time something has a name that has been used in publications, it is no longer new. This means that buzz words Agricultural Patents in the Age of Artificial Intelligence Dr. Sinai Yarus Partner, The Luzzatto Group
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