Can AI qualify as an "inventor" for the purposes of patent law? - UK Human Rights Blog

The Court of Appeal has ruled that an artificial intelligence machine cannot qualify as an "inventor" for the purposes of Sections 7 and 13 of the Patents Act because it is not a person. Further, in determining whether a person had the right to apply for a patent under Section 7(2)(b), there was no rule of law that new intangible property produced by existing tangible property was the property of the owner of the tangible property, and certainly no rule that property in an invention created by a machine was owned by the owner of the machine. This was an appeal by the owner of an artificial intelligence machine against a decision upholding the respondent Comptroller's refusal of his patent applications in respect of inventions generated by the machine.The appellant had submitted two patent applications designating an artificial intelligence machine (DABUS), as the inventor. DABUS stands for "Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience", an artificial neural system owned by Dr Thaler. The first invention was entitled "Food Container" and concerned the shape of parts of packaging for food.