Artificial intelligence is rapidly evolving, and large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT are one of the more exciting examples. Their generative capabilities have implications for our patent system, some of which are underappreciated and nonintuitive.
Under U.S. patent law, an inventor may not obtain a patent if the claimed invention would have been obvious to an artisan of ordinary skill, in view of the prior art. (See 35 U.S.C. § 103.)