The paper substantiates the expediency of studying patent law within the framework of civil law theory, which ultimately makes it possible to develop practical proposals for optimizing the protection of the objects of so-called «industrial property»: inventions, utility models, industrial designs, trademarks and service marks, and appellations of origin. Attention is drawn to the fact that the dispositive principles of civil law are increasingly, for objective and readily understandable reasons, yielding to the category of public interest. At the same time, the author argues that these circumstances, together with the development of digital («machine») technologies, should not affect the fundamental approaches to the most important and universal regulator of social relations. Intellectual property law (as well as patent law studied in our department) should not become a «law of the machine»; moreover, the necessary balance between the interests of the human being and the «machine» (artificial intelligence, smart technologies, and the like), under which there might hypothetically emerge a «law of the human and the machine», is unlikely to be secured even in the future. Law must remain the «law of the human being».