AI cannot be patent ‘inventor’ Rules UK Supreme Court

A US computer scientist on yesterday lost his bid to register patents over inventions created by his artificial intelligence system in a landmark case in Britain about whether AI can own patent rights.

Stephen Thaler wanted to be granted two patents in the UK for inventions he says were devised by his “creativity machine” called DABUS.

His attempt to register the patents was refused by Britain’s Intellectual Property Office on the grounds that the inventor must be a human or a company, rather than a machine.

Thaler appealed to the UK’s Supreme Court, which yesterday unanimously rejected his appeal as under UK patent law “an inventor must be a natural person”.