by Artificial intelligence (AI) cannot legally be considered inventor to secure patent rights, the Supreme Court has ruled.
In a ruling on Wednesday, the UK’s highest court concluded that “an inventor must be a person” to be able to apply for patents under current law.
The ruling comes after technologist Dr. Stephen Thaler took his long-running dispute with the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) to the country’s highest court over the rejection of his attempt to list an AI he created as the inventor of two patents.
The American developer claims that the AI machine called DABUS autonomously created a food or drink container and a light beacon and that it has rights to its inventions.
But the IPO concluded in December 2019 that the expert could not officially register DABUS as an inventor in the patent applications because he is not a person.
The decision was upheld by the High Court and the Court of Appeal in July 2020 and July 2021.
Following a hearing in March, a five-judge panel of the Supreme Court unanimously dismissed Dr. Thaler’s case.
The DABUS dispute centered on how applications are filed under the Patents Act 1977 legislation, and judges were not asked to rule on whether the AI actually created its inventions.
Lord Kitchin, with whom Lords Hodge, Hamblen, Leggatt and Richards agreed, said the IPO “was right to decide that DABUS is not and was not the inventor of any new product or process described in the patent applications”.
He continued: “He is not a person, much less a natural person, and he did not devise any relevant invention.
“Accordingly, he is not and never was an inventor for the purposes of…the 1977 Act.”
The judge said the IPO was entitled to consider that Dr Thaler’s applications should be considered “withdrawn” under patent rules because he “failed to identify any person or persons whom he believed to be the inventor or inventors of the inventions described in the requests”. .
The Supreme Court also rejected Dr. Thaler’s argument that he had the right to apply for patents for DABUS’ inventions on the basis that he owned the AI.
Lord Kitchin said DABUS was “a machine without legal personality” and that Dr Thaler “has no independent right to obtain a patent in respect of such a technical advance”.
He added that patent law “does not confer on any person the right to obtain a patent for any new product or process created or generated autonomously by a machine, such as DABUS, much less on a person who claims that right solely on the basis of property. of the machine”.
The judge said the IPO had previously been correct to emphasize that the case “did not concern the broader question of whether technical advances generated by machines acting autonomously and powered by AI should be patentable.”
He added: “Nor is he concerned with the question of whether the meaning of the term ‘inventor’ should be expanded, to the extent necessary, to include AI-powered machines that generate new, non-obvious products and processes that can be considered to offer benefits over products and processes. that they already know each other.”
In a statement applauding the “clarification” of patent law made by the ruling, an IPO spokesperson said it did not alter the Government’s previous conclusion following the public consultation that “there should be no legal change to the law.” of UK patents now”, although he noted that “many share the view that any future changes would have to be at an international level”.
He said the Government was “keen to make the UK a global hub for AI and data-driven innovation”, adding that the IPO recognized that “there are legitimate questions about how the patent system and indeed ownership Intellectual in general should handle this (AI) creations.”
“However, the Government will keep this area of the law under review to ensure that the UK patent system supports innovation in AI and the use of AI in the UK. “We will continue to engage in discussions about AI inventions internationally to support the UK’s economic interests,” the spokesperson said.
Robert Jehan of law firm Williams Powell, who represented Dr Thaler at the Supreme Court, said the ruling shows “how poorly current UK patent law supports the goal of making the UK a global center for AI and data-driven innovation,” and said “shortcomings” needed to be addressed “urgently.”
He said: “UK patent law is inadequate and unable to offer protection for AI-generated inventions and, as a consequence, it can be expected that this could have a detrimental impact on the UK industry.”
Jehan said the “lack of patent protection for AI-generated inventions” would push industries to look outside the UK and act as a “disincentive to disclose inventions created by AI systems”.
He added that “in the worst case scenario”, the Government’s decision not to update the law “could mean that inventions devised by artificial intelligence systems cannot currently be protected or controlled by patents in the UK”.
Patents, which grant legal rights of protection, are granted for inventions that must be new, inventive and capable of being made or used or a technical process or method of doing something, in accordance with Government guidelines.
Dr. Thaler’s case reached the Supreme Court amid recent scrutiny of advances in artificial intelligence (such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT technology), including their potential impact on education, the spread of misinformation, and the professions.
At the March hearing, the technologist’s lawyers argued that patent law does not “exclude” non-human inventors and contains no requirements regarding “the nature of the inventor.”
Jehan told the judges in his written arguments that the expert believes he “cannot sincerely be named the inventor” of DABUS’ creations.
“There is no legal prohibition preventing patents from being granted for inventions generated by artificial intelligence systems,” Jehan said.
But Stuart Baran, an IPO representative, said in written arguments that patent law requires “identifying the person or persons” believed to be an inventor.
He said at the time that the IPO had not received other patent applications for AI-conceived inventions like Dr. Thaler’s, calling the dispute a “test case, rather than one motivated by a pressing real-world need.” .
But Baran said the IPO recognized that “this is a rapidly developing area of technology and the situation may change considerably in the future.”
He said that following a 2021 consultation, the Government decided there was no evidence that UK patent law was inappropriate to protect inventions made with AI.
