United Kingdom: Suspended UKIPO Guidelines on patent applications relating to AI inventions

On 23 November 2023, the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) temporarily suspended the guidelines for the examination of patent applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) inventions. The guidelines clarified that patents are available for AI inventions in all fields of technology and established that although mathematical methods or computer programs are excluded from patent protection, when the task or process performed by an AI invention contains a technical contribution, it becomes patentable. Additionally, the guidelines included a specific document with several scenarios involving AI inventions or machine learning (ML) technologies and determined the criteria applicable to their patentability.