Can computers and AI systems really be inventors?

A law professor at the University of Surrey is arguing that it should be possible for computer-based artificial intelligence (AI) systems to be formally considered as inventors for any invention they contribute to, much in the same way a person would. The argument forms part of a paper, which has been published in the Boston College Law Review, entitled I Think, Therefore I Invent: Creative Computers and the Future of Patent Law. In its introduction the report makes the point that while inventions by computers have been granted patents previously, the concept of computer inventorship has never actually been considered by the courts. The concept of giving creative computers the credit for their own inventions may sound surreal but, in reality, they have been generating potentially patentable ideas for decades without acknowledgment. As Professor Ryan Abbott points out in his paper, 'machines have been autonomously generating patentable results for at least twenty years and the pace of such invention is likely increasing.'