ChatGPT for Inventors

[RightyTighty]

AI is an amazing tool. A few tips based on my experience in applying it to product development:

Ideation: Give it a problem and ask for innovative physical products to address the problem. It will give you some good avenues to ponder/pursue. I tried once to get it to actually “invent” a product, but in general I don’t think it’s ready for prime time yet. In my experience, the closer you try to get to finite solutions w/AI, the less efficient it becomes.

Prior Art Search: ChatGPT is great for organic prior art searches, not so much for patent searches (though this may be more of a user shortcoming). It can provide keywords for searches and can provide awesome boolean search strings for searching the USPTO site, I just haven’t been able to get it to whittle down the searches to a reasonable number of pertinent results. I find it interesting that I can do this manually but have not yet figured out the prompts for AI to complete the task well. Tip of the day: try https://projectpq.ai, an open source AI patent search engine. Note that it searches google patents, not USPTO, and cannot be considered as a comprehensive search tool. I use the results from pqai to help draft search inquiries for classification searches on the USPTO site. Another GREAT thing chatGPT can do is analyze claims of patents and tell you what is actually being claimed in laymen’s terms. This alone has saved me hours of work.

Prototyping: It’s written some amazingly elegant code for Arduino on the first pass (amazing how well it can write code while often failing at the most basic math). It can be used to provide some innovative paths to pursue when trying to achieve a specific function in a prototype. It’s can also quickly provide specific technical/operational information needed to produce prototypes, as well as information about materials, manufacturability, and DFM, providing the education to make your prototypes closer to the end product. I’ve found chatGPT-4’s graphics capabilities to be frustrating and completely useless for my purposes. I’ve been told that Midjourney is much better but I haven’t tried it.

Patent Writing: I have written a GPT that does an impressive job of writing the front end of PPA’s (Abstract, Field, Background, Summary). I like to include a couple of broad claims in my PPA’s, and I’m tweaking a GPT now to draft these. I’m also working on a GPT to identify possible embodiments of the invention, which is an important part of a PPA.

In short, the only task I’ve found in the invention process that AI can complete on its own is coding. While it can open some mental doors and make many other tasks more efficient, it still requires intervention/knowledgable oversight. Hope this information is helpful to someone.

 

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[EmotionEngine]

Someone built a trending app using ChatGPT. It did the art and code and all.

I generated the trending Watermelon Game using ChatGPT — including the 2D art! Here is how:

Watermelon Game

medium.com

 

[AmazingLarry]

AI is an amazing tool. A few tips based on my experience in applying it to product development:

Ideation: Give it a problem and ask for innovative physical products to address the problem. It will give you some good avenues to ponder/pursue. I tried once to get it to actually “invent” a product, but in general I don’t think it’s ready for prime time yet. In my experience, the closer you try to get to finite solutions w/AI, the less efficient it becomes.

Prior Art Search: ChatGPT is great for organic prior art searches, not so much for patent searches (though this may be more of a user shortcoming). It can provide keywords for searches and can provide awesome boolean search strings for searching the USPTO site, I just haven’t been able to get it to whittle down the searches to a reasonable number of pertinent results. I find it interesting that I can do this manually but have not yet figured out the prompts for AI to complete the task well. Tip of the day: try https://projectpq.ai, an open source AI patent search engine. Note that it searches google patents, not USPTO, and cannot be considered as a comprehensive search tool. I use the results from pqai to help draft search inquiries for classification searches on the USPTO site. Another GREAT thing chatGPT can do is analyze claims of patents and tell you what is actually being claimed in laymen’s terms. This alone has saved me hours of work.

Prototyping: It’s written some amazingly elegant code for Arduino on the first pass (amazing how well it can write code while often failing at the most basic math). It can be used to provide some innovative paths to pursue when trying to achieve a specific function in a prototype. It’s can also quickly provide specific technical/operational information needed to produce prototypes, as well as information about materials, manufacturability, and DFM, providing the education to make your prototypes closer to the end product. I’ve found chatGPT-4’s graphics capabilities to be frustrating and completely useless for my purposes. I’ve been told that Midjourney is much better but I haven’t tried it.

Patent Writing: I have written a GPT that does an impressive job of writing the front end of PPA’s (Abstract, Field, Background, Summary). I like to include a couple of broad claims in my PPA’s, and I’m tweaking a GPT now to draft these. I’m also working on a GPT to identify possible embodiments of the invention, which is an important part of a PPA.

In short, the only task I’ve found in the invention process that AI can complete on its own is coding. While it can open some mental doors and make many other tasks more efficient, it still requires intervention/knowledgable oversight. Hope this information is helpful to someone.

Do you think GPT is capable of determining if an invention infringes on existing parents (if you provided the claims of the existing patents)?

This is something I'm trying to do and actually had this thought today.

 

[RightyTighty]

Do you think GPT is capable of determining if an invention infringes on existing parents (if you provided the claims of the existing patents)?

Not directly (at least I wouldn’t trust it to do so). Following an exhaustive patent search you can have AI analyze the claims and have a much better idea of all IP being claimed. You can then use AI to help construct what your invention claims and to compare for overlap. The final answer may be subjective, in which case you should consult a patent attorney.

When asking about infringement, is your real question “Can I get a patent?” or is it “Am I going to get sued?” (or both?). Novelty problems can often be overcome by making your claims more narrow, but this may lead to a weak patent that’s not worth filing. But note that reducing your claims does nothing to mitigate infringement. You can get a patent for a novel nose hair clipper that folds into an iPhone, but you can’t build and sell the entire device without an iPhone licensing agreement. The answer to “Am I going to get sued?” is largely a function of who holds the patent and the value of the infringement. You typically don’t to risk rolling the dice on this matter.

 

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[AmazingLarry]

Not directly (at least I wouldn’t trust it to do so). Following an exhaustive patent search you can have AI analyze the claims and have a much better idea of all IP being claimed. You can then use AI to help construct what your invention claims and to compare for overlap. The final answer may be subjective, in which case you should consult a patent attorney.

When asking about infringement, is your real question “Can I get a patent?” or is it “Am I going to get sued?” (or both?). Novelty problems can often be overcome by making your claims more narrow, but this may lead to a weak patent that’s not worth filing. But note that reducing your claims does nothing to mitigate infringement. You can get a patent for a novel nose hair clipper that folds into an iPhone, but you can’t build and sell the entire device without an iPhone licensing agreement. The answer to “Am I going to get sued?” is largely a function of who holds the patent and the value of the infringement. You typically don’t to risk rolling the dice on this matter.

Interesting. It sounds like it may have some use in my case.

I actually submitted a patent application for my own invention and I recently found out it was rejected. The correspondence referenced 3 utility patents and 1 design patent as prior art. Based on the rejection reasons, I don't see a way to update my application to have it be accepted.

So at this point my question is am I going to get sued. Two of the utility patents referenced as prior art in the rejection letter are expired, so I'm just looking at the two active ones. I'm not 100% sure on this, but I would imagine that if there was another invention similar enough to mine so that mine would be considered an infringement, then the patent examiner would have found it and it would also be referenced as prior art. Does that make sense?

Anyway, my thought is that I could have AI analyze the claims of the utility patent alongside the claims of my patent to determine if it would infringe. I could also have it generate different ideas on how to differentiate my invention. The design patent is a little trickier since it's based on visuals, but I could give this a try as well by uploading side by side renderings. Determining design patent infringement also seems more subjective from what I've read about it.

Obviously I can't trust AI like I would a patent lawyer, but it might be helpful to see what it says.

 

[RightyTighty]

It’s worth a shot. I recommend you analyze the claims and then call the patent examiner to discuss asap. They are typically helpful to pro se filers and he may be able to give you some very good advice on how to proceed.

 

[Mark Larm]

Do you think GPT is capable of determining if an invention infringes on existing parents (if you provided the claims of the existing patents)?

This is something I'm trying to do and actually had this thought today.

That is definitely worth working on. It sounds possible.

 

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