广东省贸易摩擦应对综合服务平台
（海外知识产权）

The Dual Impact: AI as Both Challenge and Tool for Inventors

双重影响：人工智能既是挑战也是发明者的工具

While my focus has been on how AI capabilities affect the legal determination of PHOSITA’s skill level, it’s worth briefly noting AI’s dual role in the inventive process. The same AI tools that raise the bar for nonobviousness by enhancing PHOSITA’s capabilities also provide inventors with powerful aids for making genuinely nonobvious advances.

虽然我的重点是人工智能的能力如何影响 PHOSITA（具有普通技能的技术人员）技能水平的法律判定，但值得简要指出的是人工智能在发明过程中的双重作用。人工智能工具通过提高 PHOSITA（具有普通技能的技术人员）的能力来提高非显而易见性的标准，同样也为发明者提供了强大的辅助工具，帮助他们取得真正的非显而易见的进步。

Consider an analogy to high-performance athletics: Just as modern training methods and equipment have raised baseline athletic performance across many sports, they have simultaneously enabled elite athletes to achieve previously impossible feats. Similarly, while AI tools may raise what constitutes “ordinary skill” in a field, inventors can leverage these same tools to make advances that transcend routine applications. An inventor might, for example, combine multiple AI systems in unprecedented ways or use AI to explore solution spaces that would be inaccessible through conventional approaches.

考虑一下与高性能运动的类比：正如现代训练方法和设备提高了许多运动项目的基本运动成绩一样，它们同时也使精英运动员实现了以前不可能实现的壮举。同样，虽然人工智能工具可能会提高某个领域的 “普通技能”，但发明人也可以利用这些工具取得超越常规应用的进步。例如，发明家可能会以前所未有的方式将多个人工智能系统结合起来，或利用人工智能探索传统方法无法触及的解决方案空间。

This dynamic reinforces rather than undermines my central thesis about incorporating AI considerations into PHOSITA analysis. The fact that inventors can use AI to make genuinely nonobvious advances, even as AI raises the baseline skill level against which those advances are measured, demonstrates that AI’s impact on patent law need not diminish the patent system’s fundamental role in promoting innovation.

这一动态加强而非削弱了我关于将人工智能因素纳入 PHOSITA 分析的核心论点。发明人可以利用人工智能取得真正的非显而易见的进步，即使人工智能提高了衡量这些进步的基准技术水平，这一事实也表明，人工智能对专利法的影响并不一定会削弱专利制度在促进创新方面的基本作用。

Embracing AI While Preserving Patent Law’s Core Principles

拥抱人工智能，同时维护专利法的核心原则

The impact of artificial intelligence on innovation is not a future possibility but a present reality that patent law must address. As we have demonstrated, considering AI capabilities when evaluating the level of ordinary skill represents a natural evolution of patent law’s nonobviousness doctrine. The Environmental Designs factors and KSR‘s flexible approach provide the foundation for this evolution, allowing us to consider AI capabilities as part of the ordinary skillset of practitioners in relevant fields without requiring new legal frameworks.

人工智能对创新的影响不是未来的可能性，而是专利法必须应对的当前现实。正如我们所展示的，在评估普通技能水平时考虑人工智能的能力是专利法非显而易见性理论的自然发展。环境设计因素和 KSR 的灵活方法为这一演变提供了基础，使我们能够将人工智能能力视为相关领域从业人员普通技能的一部分，而无需新的法律框架。

For practitioners, this evolution creates both challenges and opportunities. While AI tools may raise the baseline level of skill attributed to PHOSITA, practitioners can strengthen their nonobviousness arguments through strategic documentation and argumentation. By thoroughly documenting the state of AI capabilities in their field, practitioners establish a clear boundary between what AI-augmented practitioners can routinely accomplish and what represents genuine innovation. This documentation serves a dual purpose: it acknowledges the enhanced capabilities that AI brings to PHOSITA while simultaneously creating a well-defined baseline against which practitioners can demonstrate how their clients’ inventions transcend routine AI-enabled work.

对于从业者来说，这种演变既带来了挑战，也带来了机遇。虽然人工智能工具可能会提高 PHOSITA（具有普通技能的技术人员）的基本技能水平，但从业者可以通过战略性的文件和论证来加强他们的非显而易见性论证。通过全面记录人工智能在其领域中的能力状况，从业者可以在人工智能增强的从业者所能完成的常规工作与代表真正创新的工作之间建立明确的界限。这种记录具有双重目的：它既承认人工智能为 PHOSITA（具有普通技能的技术人员）带来的增强能力，同时又创建了一个定义明确的基线，从业者可以据此证明其客户的发明是如何超越人工智能支持的常规工作的。

Similarly, when practitioners explicitly distinguish their clients’ innovations from routine AI applications, they highlight the creative human insights and novel combinations that make the invention nonobvious. For example, a practitioner might demonstrate how their client recognized unexpected patterns in AI-generated results, combined multiple AI tools in unprecedented ways, or identified promising research directions that standard AI approaches would not have pursued. These distinctions become powerful evidence of nonobviousness, even in an environment where AI has raised PHOSITA’s baseline capabilities.

同样，当从业者明确地将客户的创新与常规的人工智能应用区分开来时，他们就会强调人类的创造性见解和新颖的组合，从而使发明不显而易见。例如，从业者可能会展示他们的客户如何在人工智能生成的结果中识别出意想不到的模式，如何以前所未有的方式将多种人工智能工具结合在一起，或者发现了标准人工智能方法不会追求的有前途的研究方向。即使在人工智能提高了 PHOSITA 的基准能力的环境中，这些区别也会成为非显而易见性的有力证据。

This approach ensures that the patent system continues to fulfill its constitutional purpose of promoting innovation while adapting to technological change. Rather than viewing AI’s impact on PHOSITA as merely raising the bar for nonobviousness, practitioners should recognize it as an opportunity to develop more sophisticated and compelling arguments for their clients’ inventions. By embracing this evolution while maintaining focus on human creativity and judgment, practitioners can help shape a patent system that appropriately balances technological advancement with the enduring principles of patent law.

这种方法确保了专利制度在适应技术变革的同时，继续实现其促进创新的宪法宗旨。从业者不应将人工智能对 PHOSITA 的影响仅仅视为提高了非显而易见性的门槛，而应将其视为为客户的发明开发提供更复杂、更有说服力的论据的机会。通过接受这种演变，同时保持对人类创造力和判断力的关注，从业者可以帮助塑造一个适当平衡技术进步与专利法持久原则的专利制度。