Inventions created by AI can't be ‘patented’: UK Supreme Court

Stephen Thaler, a US-based computer scientist, lost his bid to register not one but two patents with the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO). Reuters has reported that Thaler’s patents were denied by IPO and the UK’s Supreme Court also ruled against him.

Patent refusal details
The report says that Thaler wanted to register two patents for inventions that were created by his artificial intelligence system or "creativity machine" called DABUS at the UK's Intellectual Property Office. The patent was denied by the IPO stating that the inventor must not be a machine. And, it needs to be a natural person or a company.

UK’s Supreme Court ruling
Thaler, on Wednesday, appealed in the UK Supreme Court which was also rejected by Judge David Kitchin mentioning the case was “not concerned with the broader question whether technical advances generated by machines acting autonomously and powered by AI should be patentable".

The Supreme Court's decision is specific to the question of whether AI can own patent rights and does not address the broader issue of whether technical advances generated by AI should be patentable.

IPO’s take
IPO welcomed the decision and mentioned that the government will keep this area of law under consideration on how the patent system and intellectual property should handle inventions created by AI.

There’s a catch
The UK patent law does mention that the inventor must be a natural person or a company and not a machine. Rajvinder Jagdev, an intellectual property partner at Powell Gilbert, has stated that such judgments do not clarify whether the person using AI to create an invention can be identified as an inventor or not.

It’s not the first for Thaler and he is not alone
There have been several cases like this where a patent application has been denied by the patent firms and courts. It’s not the first for Thaler. He has been denied a similar big in the United States Supreme Court for inventions created by his AI machine. Similar rulings were given by courts in Australia and Europe.