UK's top court rules AI can't be patent 'inventor'

LONDON: A US computer scientist on Wednesday 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 grounds that the inventor must be a human or a company, rather than a machine.

He appealed to UK's Supreme Court, which unanimously rejected his appeal as under UK patent law "an inventor must be a natural person".

"This appeal is not concerned with the broader question whether technical advances generated by machines acting autonomously and powered by AI should be patentable," the judge said. "Nor is it concerned with the question whether the meaning of the term 'inventor' ought to be expanded.. to include machines powered by AI which generate new and non-obvious products and processes which may be thought to offer benefits over products and processes which are already known."

Thaler lost a similar bid in the US, where the SC declined to hear a challenge to the Patent and Trademark Office's refusal to issue patents for inventions created by AI.