> Just as the US Patent Office problematically gave out patents in the past for computers doing simple things... the office seems prepared to give out patents on "using machine learning in obvious and expected ways." Companies like Google and Microsoft are seeking to acquire, and in some cases have acquired, patents on "fundamental machine-learning techniques," Nazer writes.

I find myself in a weird situation. Patents are a drag, and they're misused and wasteful, etc. etc. But it feels like the author here isn't acknowledging or appreciating what patents are intended for or good for.

We can't say patents are bad because there are obvious uses of a technology. Patents protect the people who develop the technology, not the competition who wants to use it for free after it works.

The issuing of a patent doesn't depend on how obvious the use is, it depends on how obvious the actual solution is. And deep convolutional neural nets trained using backprop or adversarial networks, these things are not obvious. They are even counter-obvious, for 30 years people knew about them and claimed they wouldn't work.

Again, I know and agree that bad/stupid patents are being issued, and that trolls who don't develop tech are siphoning money, and all that.

But when someone invents something that works, the patent system is supposed to apply a drag force on everyone else using it, that's it's intended function. And sometimes, maybe not that often these days, but sometimes it actually works as intended and deserving people get to see their work come to financial fruition.