The court ruled that AI cannot be identified as an inventor in a patent because it is not a person

This week, US federal judge Leonie Brickema ruled that AI cannot be listed as

inventor in the US patent in accordance withcurrent legislation. The case was brought by Steven Thaler, who is a member of the “Artificial Inventor” – international initiative stating that AI should have the right to be listed as an inventor on a patent (the owner of the AI ​​would legally own the patent).

The subject of the dispute

Thaler sues the Patent and Trademark OfficeUS marks after it rejected his patent applications because he listed an artificial intelligence called DABUS as the inventor of a new type of flashlight and beverage container. In a correspondence that lasted several months, the Patent Office explained to Thaler that a machine could not be considered an inventor because it was not a person. Essentially, the machine – it is a tool used by people to create inventions, the department argued.

The Court determined that the Patent Office was correctapplies the country's patent laws, and pointed out that it mostly comes down to everyday use of the language. In the last revision of the country's patent laws in 2011, Congress clearly defined an inventor as an “individual”. Patent law also refers to the inventor, using words such as “himself” and “herself”.

findings

The judge also rejected Thaler's contention thatthat the Patent Office should have provided evidence that Congress did not intend to exclude AI systems from inventorship. Additionally, Brickema said the nature of an inventor has already been addressed in federal courts, which have ruled that neither companies nor states can claim to be inventors on a patent.

The patent office, in turn, does notrefuses to consider what role, if any, artificial intelligence should play in patents. It solicited comments from experts in patent policy and reported that most responses reflected the view that current AI “can neither invent nor author without human intervention”.

The full text of the decision is available here (PDF, 1 MB).

Source: theverge, gizmodo

Illustrations: gizmodo

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