 news radio 700 WLW the Ford Motor Company has filed a patent uh and that patent is on drones in specific drones that can actually help you jump start a battery if your car dies on the side of the road yeah uh drones that would help you if you were in some sort of need mechanically or automatically would come in and and help you at least in that aspect and i read this story and i thought well this is interesting who wouldn't wouldn't want to be rescued if if if you know someone won't stop to help you who wouldn't want a machine to come flying in from outer space or wherever to come down and help you jump start your car but the more i read about it the more i realized that a lot of this is just nonsense i mean okay a drone flies in and uh it examines i guess your battery or it looks at your car and then these these wires descend and they hook up to your battery they charge your battery and off you go well wait a minute hang on one second does that technology exist right now turns out well um not really is it practical uh well what do you mean well i mean if your car is dead on the side of the road wouldn't it be easier if you have AAA just call AAA or maybe hope that somebody comes by and maybe helps you jump start your car or my goodness if nothing else you just call a tow truck and the more i i read about it the more i realized that patents are filed all the time and largely just a block or key someone else from doing it sometime in the future and then i read a blog that was written by my next guest i've had john risby on the show many times they call him the patent professor in fact he has a patent on that uh particular title but he is uh an attorney an adjunct professor at the patent of patent law at nova southeastern law school in florida and he's authored uh several books on patents and whenever it comes to this kind of pride uh proprietary technology i want to have john on the show i'm glad he's with us now john how are you on this glorious day yeah i'm good always a pleasure to be here am i am i reading this correctly i mean i i don't sense that ford has this technology yet but just in case they come up with it uh they're covered is that where this is right now that you're you're 100 correct um and it's funny i mean a bit of history in the the 1800s the patent office required a working model to be submitted when you filed a patent application and uh clearly you know there's over 11 million patents now that requirement was was dropped a long time ago but patents don't have you don't have to have a working model uh and the patent office does not review applications for practicality and and or even if they work absent something ridiculous like if they defy the laws of of science or uh you know like a perpetual motion device something like that they they would look at but otherwise they take the patent at face value they're not looking at practical aspects um as a as a lawyer i can see they're not looking at liability either because this patent talks about carrying the charging block which is kind of like a battery through the air uh talk about liability if if you've ever lifted a car battery like that uh and you can imagine a drone flying uh with a car carrying a car battery out to you like if that thing falls or or you know goes through a windshield we're talking major major harm so possibly go wrong but in other words if i let's say i had this brilliant idea that i was going to develop a bottle that would would disperse soda from the bottom instead of the top of it and all i had to do was just hold it above my head and i thought it was the greatest idea i've ever had in my life are you telling me that all that i would be required to do to get a patent in this day and age is not produce said bottle but just let the people who issue patents know i had this brilliant idea and they would issue me a patent on it is that what's going on the there's there's three requirements for patentability utility uh it has to do what it purports to do a novelty it has to be new uh and non-obviousness it can't be obvious but there's no there's no requirement that it be practical or it's not anybody there's my bottle right there there's my bottle idea right there it it's uh it it certainly seems unique and new i've never heard of that now whether anybody would want to lift the bottle over their head and have the liquid come out the bottom you never know i mean that's why you know and there's examples like rollerblading i always think of the you know the patent attorney went up and went up an inventor comes in and says you know what i've got a way to skate where you not only can fall uh forwards and backwards but now you've got a balance so that you don't fall to the left and right and then and then go like eureka that you've got it there so it's it's tough to really tell where there's a commercial value for an idea but but you you hit the nail right on the head that a lot of times companies are are filing these patents really to stop uh competitors and to get like uh get a monopoly and create like a patent web uh in the industry and that that seems to be what what ford's doing to have a couple weeks ago i believe uh i was on your show as well with ford's patent on a self-repossessing car that's right and this is if you fall you fall behind on your your payment and there's no repo man coming to get your car so the car just drives itself off uh and returns itself to the to the bank or the the repo lot or wherever these cars go so uh you know that now that one got a lot of backlash clearly that's not popular uh no you don't watch your car like just taking off the driveway say i'll see you later sorry you didn't make a watch payment right but that's that you know they they in in that patent they talked about various steps that's like the last resort but before it does that one option is uh an unpleasant sound is emitted from the car radio this is the exact words from the the the patent document so you can't even listen to no one could listen to your show all of a sudden it'd be overtaken by some noise that that's annoying enough to make you go and hopefully make your car payment yeah even more annoying than me that could be a community service when i john i mean but you're right about let's say let's just say that uh that down the road five seven ten years down the road and and again it's very hard unless you're some sort of visionary or some sort of psychic to know exactly where technology is going but let's just say five seven ten years down the road that uh general motors decides it wants to do this this drone thing well wait a minute forward would say all the way back in 2023 we we we got a patent on this so general motors you're going to have to pay us so there's a monetary exchange that would happen if indeed that this thing actually becomes reality correct that a hundred percent and the way patents are written they're written in a really broad sense so that technology can evolve uh four has patents that talk about in fact the battery terminals being accessible from the outside without an owner even being there so this could be for example if your your battery is dead your car dies you may be able to just lock your car close the trunk close the hood and take off and these drones could come by uh and recharge your battery without you even being present that's a may i mean yeah i mean it's it's just the whole concept is is crazy we're chatting with john risby we're talking about well in this instance ford uh seeking a patent on drones coming in to jumpstart your car in case you're you're on the side of the road you know you know i've had a lot of conversations i just want to take it just just a little a little using the car analogy a different little off ramp here but uh this whole thing with chat gpt and in particular or any kind of ai it it it kind of murky murky's the water a little bit here i was i've been seeing a lot about ai and chat gpt and how things are generated and what in in in essence is uh creative property or or things that you have come up with how do how do we navigate that who's to say if something appears on chat gpt that it's not something that i've already come up with or perhaps even copyrighted as as a thought amusing or some sort of you know ravings of a lunatic why where are we going with all of this artificial intelligence in your opinion yeah well uh in my opinion it's making people dumber so the the art of replacing real intelligence i mean uh you know there's imagine today there's a lot of kids that if their rear cars rear view camera didn't work they couldn't back out of a parking space uh uh the the blind spots on cars you have the the safety devices that now alert you but if that malfunctions uh you know fewer and fewer people are looking out their windows in an actual mirror to make sure there is not a car next door so that's a concern that i have with ai from a legal standpoint uh the copyright office has held that uh a computer and it seems like so basic like they even have to have a holding on this but to be an author requires that you be human and a chat gpt a computer cannot own rights to a a copyright uh uh under there and this that there was actually supported by i don't know if you remember the the monkey selfie case from a few years ago oh yes a photographer's cell phone was stolen a monkey accidentally took a bunch of selfies and the photographer filed for a copyright claiming that because it was his phone that he should have rights to it the copyright office looked at and said well no the monkey is the person the person the the thing the animal that that took the pictures and you have to be a human to in order to be entitled to a copyright and that's what's going to that's a real obstacle to chat gpt because the the computer is the one that's actually generating the content now authors are claiming yeah but we're putting in the queries and the computer is no different than a than a tool like a paintbrush for a painter but uh but there's a lot of you know real painters they would disagree they're so well wait a minute you know yes we use the brush but it's a lot of the control on the brush the artistry is us it's different than when you use artificial intelligence and until your computer put in terms that say draw a frog with a horse head and then three minutes later it's got this beautiful drawing well who's the uh who's the author i mean the person that just simply said frog with a horse head is that going to give is he going to get rights to it uh the computer certainly the computer can't because uh it's a it's not it's not human right right imagine if that the whole painting of the sistine chapel went that way you know i just put it in my gp no but my point being is is that a lot of the stuff that's input into into the into chat gpt where's it coming from who is it that's doing that and do they not nest do they not have proprietary rights to whatever is in there in other words you could say give me um 10 chat give me 10 paragraphs on um donald trump give me 10 paragraphs on donald trump and it could fish it out from anywhere but where is it fishing it out from who's putting in the information for it to fish it out the information the person who generated that information to me would seem to be the person that is the is the proprietary owner of that right that intellectual property it would seem to me it would be that way could you make an argument that way in court right right and that and that has been made because let's you know after all chat gpt their source material is everything pretty much online have built access to billions of documents and uh and there's no credit given for their sources so uh yeah i mean there's there's still there are no court decisions determining that but that's that's certainly something that i believe is going to be litigated well your your uh your profession it seems like it's just it's morphing daily and daily for different things drones and chat gpt if you and i had this conversation 10 years ago i don't think either one of us would know what the hell we're talking about but here we are in 2023 and when it comes to things like that you're our guy john thank you so much for your time and stay well we need to hear your voice okay uh thank you all always a pleasure to be here