The US Court of Appeals has upheld previous rulings that AIs cannot hold patents for inventions.
AIs are increasingly being used to make new discoveries, but most patent laws require a human to be listed as the patentee for inventions.
dr Stephen Thaler created a neural network device called DABUS that was used to invent an emergency warning light, a food container that improves grip and heat transfer, and more.
Thaler believes AIs should be patent holders and has filed numerous lawsuits in at least 15 countries to represent the case.
So far, all cases in the UK, US and New Zealand have been dismissed.
In August 2021, an Australian federal court ruled that AI systems can be recognized as an inventor. In April 2022, however, this decision was reversed.
Ryan Abbott, a professor at the University of Surrey, submitted the applications in Australia on behalf of Dr. Thaler a.
“If I’m teaching my graduate student and he comes up with a final complex idea, that doesn’t make me the inventor of his patent, so it shouldn’t be with a machine,” Abbott told The Wall Street Journal in 2019.
In the US, the case was brought by the Artificial Inventor Project (AIP), which argued Thaler had no experience with consumer products and had not developed them themselves. Once again it was rejected.
“This is a case where the question of interpreting the law begins and ends with the plain sense of the text… [T]There is no doubt about it: patent law requires inventors to be natural persons; that is, people,” Judge Leonard P. Stark wrote in the court decision.
At the time, Thaler and Abbott said they would continue to appeal the decisions.
“It ignores the purpose of the patent law and the finding that AI-generated inventions are now not patentable in the United States,” Abbott told Bloomberg Law.
“It’s a result with really negative social consequences.”
Although the appeal denials have not deterred Thaler or Abbott, most courts appear determined to uphold the principle that humans can only be listed as inventors.
The main argument of the courts is that it is not an AI that creates a new invention on its own, but a tool that ultimately acts on the instructions of a human. Until we get to general artificial intelligence, it’s a position that’s hard to dispute.
After the recent rejection, Thaler is applying for a new hearing at the level of the Federal Constitutional Court.
(Photo by Daniel Herron on Unsplash)
Want to learn more about AI and Big Data from industry leaders? Check out the AI & Big Data Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California and London.
Find out about other upcoming enterprise technology events and webinars hosted by TechForge here.