Stephen Thaler wanted to be granted two patents in the UK for inventions by his “creativity machine” called DABUS
A U.S. computer scientist on Wednesday lost his bid to register patents over inventions by his AI system in a landmark case in Britain about whether artificial intelligence can own patent rights.
Stephen Thaler wanted to be granted two patents in the UK for inventions by his “creativity machine” called DABUS.
The scientist’s attempt to register the patents was refused by the UK’s Intellectual Property Office (IPO) on the grounds that the inventor must be a human or a firm, rather than a machine.
Thaler appealed to the UK’s Supreme Court, which on Wednesday unanimously refused his appeal as under UK patent law “an inventor must be a natural person.”
Judge David Kitchin said in the court’s written ruling that the case was not concerned with the wider question whether technical advances generated by machines acting autonomously and powered by artificial intelligence should be patentable.
Thaler’s lawyers said in a statement that the ruling establishes that UK patent law is currently wholly unsuitable for protecting inventions generated autonomously by AI machines and as a consequence wholly inadequate in supporting any industry that relies on artificial intelligence in the development of new technologies.
A spokesperson for the Intellectual Property Office welcomed the decision “and the clarification it gives as to the law as it stands in relation to the patenting of creations of artificial intelligence machines.”
They said that there are legitimate questions as to how the patent system and certainly intellectual property more widely should handle such creations and the government will keep this area of law under review.
The scientist earlier this year lost a similar bid in the U.S., where the Supreme Court refused to hear a challenge to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s refusal to issue patents for inventions created by his artificial intelligence system.
Giles Parsons, a partner at law firm Browne Jacobson, who was not involved in the case, said the UK Supreme Court’s ruling was not surprising.
This decision will not, at the moment, have a considerable effect on the patent system, Parsons added. That is because, for the time being, artificial intelligence is a tool, not an agent.
I do expect that will change in the medium term, but we can deal with that problem as it arises, Parsons said.