SA becomes the first country in the world to award a patent to an AI-generated invention

South Africa recently became what is believed to be the first country in the world to award a patent to an invention by an Artificial Intelligence (AI). An interlocking food and beverage container based on fractal geometry has been awarded a patent by South Africa's Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC). Confirmation of the patent was published in the commission's journal on 28 July. But unlike the hundreds of patents listed in the CIPC's latest journal, this container was not conceptualised by a human. The patent identifies Dabus – the Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience – as the inventor.