NEWS

Can artificial intelligence (AI) be patent inventors?

Release time:

2021-08-16 12:06

Can artificial intelligence (AI) be patent inventors?

Have you ever been aware of the inventors’ existence in patent applications?

 

During the patent application process or in patent wars, themain point always focuses on patentees and patents themselves. However, this time inventors are in the spotlight. The decisions from the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission of South Africa and the Federal Court of Australia bombarded the patent world. It is about how technology challenges patent law.

On 28th July, the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission of South Africa granted the first patent on an invention created by an artificial intelligence (AI) inventor, DABUS. South Africa becomes the first country which recognizes AI as an inventor.

 

DABUS (device for theautonomousbootstrapping ofunifiedsentience) is an AI system created by Stephen Thaler, an expert in the field of AI. The system imitates human brainstorming and creates new inventions, and it is capable of functioning independently and complexly. DABUS invented an emergency warning light and a food container that improves grip and heat transfer. Thaler has filed the patent application listing DABUS as the inventor in patent offices around the world, including the US, the UK, Europe, Australia, and South Africa; however, only South Africa granted the patent. The other countries stated that inventors on a patent application must have “legal capacity” or must be “natural persons”.

 

On the other hand, on 30th July the Federal Court of Australia ruled an artificial intelligence (AI) system can be an inventor under the Australian Patents Act. The decision inThaler v Commissioner of Patents [2021]  FCA 879 is the first judicial determination in favor of AI inventorship.

 

The Honorable Justice Beach said, “First, an inventor is an agent noun; an agent can be a person or thing that invents. Second, so to hold reflects the reality in terms of many otherwise patentable inventions where it cannot sensibly be said that a human is the inventor. Third, nothing in the Act dictates the contrary conclusion.”

 

The Justice considered that patentable inventions are not all created by humans, and further explained, “……that position confuses the question of ownership and control of a patentable invention including who can be a patentee. …… Only a human or other legal person can be an owner, controller or patentee. That of course includes an inventor who is a human. But it is a fallacy to argue from this that an inventor can only be a human. An inventor may be an artificial intelligence system, but in such a circumstance could not be the owner, controller or patentee of the patentable invention.”

Following the court’s decision, Thaler’s application will be sent back to the Australian Patent Office to reconsider the reasons for their rejection.

 

Whether AI can be listed as an inventor in AI-generated inventions is still debating. In addition, based on the decisions from South Africa and Australia, they brought us back to rethinking not only inventors’ position but also what inventors mean in the patent field.

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