No, l‘artificial intelligence cannot appear under “inventor” in one patent application concerning a new technology or a new product. Judge Lord Kitchin established this in his ruling: «The inventor must be a natural person. Only one person can come up with an invention».
The case came to court for the first time in 2018, when Stephen Thaler – founder of Imagination Engines – named his AI DABUS as the inventor. In particular, Thaler has turned to several courts to have his artificial intelligence recognized as the real “mind” behind a food container that robots can easily grasp and a flashing warning light designed to get people’s attention in an emergency.
Both the European Patent Office and the UK Intellectual Property Office they rejected the application. The reason? The inventor designated in the application it had to be a real person, a human being, not a machine. The decision was later upheld by the UK Supreme Court.
Why Thaler fights for his artificial intelligence (and not only)
The aforementioned Thaler is part of theAmerican Inventor Project, a team of researchers and lawyers fighting for intellectual property rights for results generated by artificial intelligence in the absence of a human. Approving patents of this type, Thaler explained, would encourage companies to invest in the development of artificial intelligence systems.
However, unlike what some might think, not all requests were rejected. Patent rights have in fact been granted in both South Africa and Australia.
The matter will certainly be discussed again in the future, declared lawyer Yohan Liyanage a Bloomberg. Artificial intelligences are expanding very rapidly and «If the UK government is serious about establishing itself as an AI superpower, legislative action may be needed to allow patents on AI-created inventions».