Automated re-invention of six patented optical lens
systems using genetic programming
GECCO 2005: Proceedings of the 2005 conference on
Genetic and evolutionary computation, 2, page 1953--1960. Washington DC, USA, ACM Press, (25-29 June 2005)Abstract
genetic programming was used as an invention machine
to automatically synthesis complete designs for six
optical lens systems that duplicated the functionality
of previously patented lens systems. The automatic
synthesis was done "from scratch". that is, without
starting from a preexisting good design and without
pre-specifying the number of lenses, the physical
layout of the lenses, the numerical parameters of the
lenses, or the non-numerical parameters of the lenses.
One of the six genetically evolved lens systems
infringed a previously issued patent; three contained
many of the essential features of the patents, without
infringing; and the others were non-infringing novel
designs that duplicated (or improved upon) the
performance specifications contained in the patents.
One of the six patents was issued in the 21st-century.
The six designs were created in a substantially similar
and routine way, suggesting that the approach used may
have widespread utility. The genetically evolved
designs are instances of human competitive results
produced by genetic programming in the field of optical
design.
