Patentability Analysis of “Intelligent” Disease Diagnosis Methods in China in the Era of Smart Health Care

Abstract

In the era of smart health care, artificial intelligence technology has penetrated the medical field, resulting in a number of new inventions with “disease diagnosis methods” as their content and “artificial intelligence algorithm” as their method. These new inventions represent “intelligent” disease diagnosis. In China, patent applications for such inventions have been published and even been granted. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze the patentability of “intelligent” disease diagnosis methods and further demonstrate the extent to which China's attempts to grant such patents are in line with international patent granting trends. When dealing with such patent applications in the future, China may try to confirm the patentability of such objects by setting typical cases in the patent examination guidelines, so as to eliminate uncertainty as to the current legal status of such inventions. In a patent examination, it can declare China's higher protection for artificial intelligence patents in the medical field by conducting more substantive examination on them, so as to gain an advantage in the international patent competition.