The UK Supreme Court has delivered a landmark ruling that artificial intelligence (AI) systems cannot be recognized as inventors on patent applications. This decision has significant implications for the future of AI and its role in the invention process.
The case in question involved two patent applications filed by US computer scientist Stephen Thaler in 2018. Thaler sought to have his AI system, DABUS, recognized as the inventor of a food container and a flashing light beacon. However, the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) rejected this, stating that only a person could be named as an inventor.
The High Court and the Court of Appeal backed the IPO’s decision. “Whilst it is increasingly easy to anthropomorphize AI and its accomplishments, the UK Supreme Court has reiterated that the Patents Act requires an inventor to be a natural person to obtain a patent,” said Tim Harris, a patent litigator at law firm Osborne Clarke, in emailed comments.
“If it had been Dr Thaler’s case that he was the inventor and had used DABUS as a highly sophisticated tool, the outcome of the proceedings may have been different. However, the Supreme Court was not asked to decide this question. Neither was it asked to determine broader questions such as whether technical advances generated by AI acting autonomously should be patentable.”
Diego Black, from European intellectual property firm Withers and Rogers, told the BBC that a different decision could have caused “headaches for companies using [AI] software to innovate as they may not be the owner of the patent”. Simon Barker, of law firm Freeths, said the judgment raised “interesting policy questions” about how governments might look to change laws in the future as AI advances.
“There are similar debates in other areas of intellectual property rights too. Copyright in AI-generated works, for example. Is the programmer of the AI the creator, or the user who is responsible for prompting the machine? And what if it is just the machine itself, like Dr Thaler claimed of Dabus?”
Some legal experts expect pressure for changes to existing laws to grow, as AIs become increasingly capable of autonomously generating novel ideas.
Relevant articles:
– No, AI cannot be named as an inventor, UK Supreme Court says
– AI cannot patent inventions, UK Supreme Court says
– AI cannot be named as an ‘inventor,’ top UK court says in patent dispute