Patent and publish it. CAD is not limited by the algorithm so much as a lack new problems. However, if you can generate a little buzz you can become a consultant / start a consultant company.
PS: Many machine learning systems can trade off accuracy for efficiency so you might look into increasing efficiency vs. accuracy for some existing application.
Thought about patenting it, but the entire idea of a patent is the ability to enforce a monopoly.
I will never be able to inspect the insides of any commercial AI in the field, so as to allege an infringement on my patent.
This is what's wrong with our patent system. Imagine if all those great minds who came up with theorems you had to learn in 4-6 years of college decided to patent them.
Actually most of them have been dead for a long time so it wouldn't really matter, but I agree with you some things should not be patentable.
On the other hand imagine a world without patents and you'd probably get a world fill with trade secrets and that is even worse, at least a patent guarantees that the idea will pass to the public domain after a certain period. Would the world benefit if technology was segmented and kept secret like the coca-cola formula?
But seriously that is a great discussion for different thread.
Copyright isn't forever. It originally expired 17 years after the death of the author. Unfortunately Disney pushed for extension of copyrights every time their key copyrights (Micky mouse & friends) were about to expire and have been able to push extending them quite unreasonably.
PS: Many machine learning systems can trade off accuracy for efficiency so you might look into increasing efficiency vs. accuracy for some existing application.