Artificial Intelligence can't technically invent things, says patent office

However, according to the USPTO's ruling, inventions can only be submitted (and depending on how philosophical you want to get, conceived) by a "natural person," as reflected in the language of patent law and also in previous federal court rulings. Speaking of philosophy, the ruling quotes a Federal Circuit court decision from 1994 that expounds on the nature of invention in a way that's certain to send your brain down the maze of reflexive self-awareness. "Conception is the touchstone of inventorship, the completion of the mental part of invention. It is the formation in the mind of the inventor, of a definite and permanent idea of the complete and operative invention ... [Conception] is a mental act ..." Patents that list DABUS as the inventor have also been denied in Europe and the UK for similar reasons related to personhood. The European Patent Office also raised the issue of who, exactly, would enforce the rights granted to an inventor under such a circumstance. Thaler, the mind behind DABUS, is a physicist and founder of Imagination Engines, a company that researches and develops artificial neural networks.