UK Court on AI inventorship: Thaler v Comptroller [2021] EWCA Civ 1374

UK Court on AI inventorship: Thaler v Comptroller [2021] EWCA Civ 1374

On 21 September 2021, the UK Court of Appeal handed down its judgement on two patent applications in the UK that are said to have been devised by DABUS, an artificial intelligence (AI) “creativity machine” built by Dr. Stephen Thaler.
 
The core arguments surrounding patent rights for inventions focused on two key issues:

(i) whether the AI machine (DABUS) itself qualifies as an “inventor”; and
(ii) whether Dr. Thaler owns the rights in any invention deriving from DABUS.
 
It’s worth bearing in mind that parallel litigation in the US has already determined that AI cannot qualify as an inventor, at least for now. However, an Australian court recently ruled that their local patent law does not prohibit AI from being an inventor. In addition, the South African patent office has granted the world’s first AI-devised patent for an invention created by the AI ‘creativity machine’ known as DABUS.
 
But, how do these decisions compare to the UK position on AI inventorship?
 

Read our summary article here


Click the above link to read our article, produced in partnership with LexisNexis – a global leader in providing news, insights and analysis to thousands of lawyers and legal experts – as we provide a punchy overview of the UK Court of Appeal’s judgement, including:

  • The practical implications of this case

  • The background behind this case, including the key issues

  • An analysis of the UK Court of Appeal’s decision
     

Get in touch

For advice on how to protect your AI-related inventions in Europe, or if you have any further questions about the case, please contact Alex Korenberg, James Snaith or your usual Kilburn & Strode patent advisor.

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