Can Artificial Intelligence be an Inventor under Patent Law?

In this era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, advances in artificial intelligence ("AI") has resulted in AI capable of generating inventions that are novel and inventive. The question becomes whether these AI generated inventions can be protected under the current patent law framework. A recent development in Australian jurisprudence takes a step toward clarifying the applicability of patent law on AI generated inventions. The Federal Court of Australia recently held in Thaler v Commissioner of Patents [2012] FC 879 ("the Thaler case") that an AI system can be named as an inventor in a patent application. After a brief introduction on basic concepts underlying patent law and AI, this article will discuss the Thaler case followed by an analysis on the Malaysian perspective.