Google and Samsung top the list of applicants for AI-related patents at the EPO

The term “artificial intelligence” is sometimes used in European patent applications and patents without further explanation or elaboration, AI apparently being taken to be no more than a known, off-the-shelf option. It is very unlikely that such applications and patents are concerned with developments in AI.

The International Patent Classification (IPC) helps us here. It has an extensive dictionary in which catchwords are linked to classifications. The catchword “Artificial Intelligence” is linked to only one class: G06N. That at least covers machine learning and neural networks, technologies at the core of developments related to artificial intelligence.

The details of the technologies covered by G06N are given further below. Applications and patents given the classification G06N provide a useful indication of EPO-related trends.

AI applications at the EPO growing

There is huge growth in AI filings at the EPO. The chart below shows the numbers of European patent applications having the classification G06N which were published year by year from 2010 to 2020.

Growth in the numbers of published G06N applications took off from 2014. Taking that year as the base, the number of published G06N applications in 2020 was over 12 times the level of 2014. This means that the percentage growth in published G06N applications over that period has been far greater than the percentage growth in total European patent applications published (shown in a comparison graph below). Also, Covid-19 does not appear to have affected this growth.

The applicants

Between 2016 and 2020, just over 4,000 AI (G06N) applications were published. Around 1,000 different applicants were responsible for them. The top 25 applicants are listed in the table below. They accounted for just about half of all applications.

Number of grants increasing but lower than in other fields

Apart from grant as a patent, processing of a European patent application may be concluded by the application being refused, withdrawn or deemed withdrawn. The charts below show year by year numbers of AI (G06N) applications processed to conclusions.

For AI (G06N) applications processed to conclusions, the proportion granted as EP patents has been increasing. For AI (G06N) applications concluded in 2019 and 2020 grant as patents was the most likely outcome but was still the outcome for less than half of the applications. The 40% grant rate for AI (G06N) applications in 2020 well behind the EPO’s overall 69% grant rate in the same year, while the 16% refusal rate in 2020 was far higher than the overall 4% EPO refusal rate.

These statistics are likely to be caused by the classification of AI at the EPO as a mathematical method which is not technical and cannot support an inventive step unless linked to implementation or specific technical application. The percentage outcomes for AI and all European applications are shown clearly below.

Although the statistics indicate that, in general, grant is less likely and refusal more likely for AI applications than for EPO applications overall, outcomes do vary greatly for different AI applicants.

The outcomes of applications processed to conclusions over the five-year period 2016 to 2020 for different AI applicants/patentees are indicated in the chart below. The proportion of patents granted varies from 15% to 74% and the proportion of applications refused ranges from 5% to 35%.

Different applicants/patentees also appear to have quite different policies regarding withdrawal of applications – two of the 10 applicants did not positively withdraw any applications as opposed to allowing them to be deemed withdrawn. Other applicants have positively withdrawn good proportions of their applications (which may be as a result of a general policy, or a reaction to poor prospects for success).

The technologies covered by AI patent applications at the EPO

The IPC can help us again here. The 4,000 European patent applications having G06N IPC classifications published between 2016 and 2020 have lead classifications and, usually, further classifications along with these. The 4,000 lead classifications are spread over more than 700 different individual classifications and the applications have a total of around 15,000 classifications spread over about 2,000 different individual classifications.

The detailed hierarchy of IPC classifications of the technologies covered by G06N is given in the table below, along with the number of occurrences of the classifications across the 4,000 European patent applications. By a clear margin the most frequent classification, G06N 3/04, concerns architecture of neural network models, followed by learning methods for neural network models

Where AI is being used, according to EPO applications 

AI has found use across many fields, from internet search engines through self-driving cars, to medical diagnostics, finance and even agriculture. If potential fields of use of a development in AI are only mentioned in the description in a European patent application, they may not be reflected in an IPC classification applied to the application. Nonetheless, and particularly if a potential field of use appears in a claim of the application, this may be reflected in an IPC classification applied to the application, either as lead classification or as a further classification, which is not a G06N classification.

The most common non-G06N classifications applied to the 4,000 European patent applications published between 2016 and 2020 are indicated in the table below. The most frequent classifications relate to pattern recognition and image analysis. Of course, these techniques can, in turn, be used in many different contexts.

Some of the recent AI applications granted at the EPO

Below are the 32 AI (G06N) patents granted in November 2021, with links to the European Patents Register.

That use for AI has been found across many fields could be illustrated by the patents granted in November, which have concerns from cell (biological) analysis and motor vehicle loss assessment (for insurance purposes), through optimisation of mobile phone networks, to detecting whether a self-driving vehicle is travelling in a one-way street.

AI (G06N) Patents Granted in November 2021

AI patents being opposed at the EPO

Since 2010, only nine AI (G06N) European patents have been opposed, as listed in the table below.

Two oppositions have been finally decided by first instance decisions (1825424 – Opposition rejected, no appeal; 2748686 – Opposition rejected, appeal withdrawn). No oppositions have yet been finally decided after appeal.

The last four oppositions listed in the table appear to be “straw man” oppositions.

Frances Wilding is a partner of Haseltine Lake Kempner, based in the firm’s London office.

Previous articles by Haseltine Lake Kempner authors in this series can be accessed here:

How to secure AI patents in Europe

Drafting AI patent applications for success at the EPO – eligibility and claim formulation

Drafting AI patent applications for success at the EPO – drafting the full specification

Technology trends – why patent your hidden AI?