Technologist Dr Stephen Thaler had sought to have his AI, called Dabus, recognised as the inventor of a food container and a flashing light beacon. But in 2019, the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) rejected this, saying only a person could be named as an inventor. The decision was then backed by both the High Court and Court of Appeal.
The IPO has argued, and courts have supported the view, that only “persons” can have patent rights, not AIs. Now five Supreme Court judges have dismissed a bid to reverse those decisions, concluding that “an inventor must be a person”, and that an AI cannot be named as an inventor to secure patent rights. The judgement does not deal with the issue of whether Dabus did in fact invent the food container and light.
Dr Thaler also argued that he was entitled to patents for Dabus inventions as the AI’s owner, but this was rejected.
Simon Barker, of law firm Freeths, said the judgement raised “interesting policy questions” about how governments might look to change laws in the future as AI advances. (1)
“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 really is just the machine itself, like Dr Thaler claimed of Dabus?”
But Professor Ryan Abbott of the University of Surrey who represented Dr Thaler in the case said the decision implied that "AI, at best, can be a ‘highly sophisticated tool’ that can be used by people who invent.
“This affects the meaning of an “inventor” under UK patent law, and to be an inventor, one need not make the creative leap behind the invention, as had been previously assumed. Accordingly, companies who use AI to develop products will have to say they or their employees are the inventors, even when the humans involved do little else but switch on the computer.”
(1) … at an exponential rate … 