Inventors must be natural people

December 20, 2023 8:50 AM

The UK Supreme Court has just handed down Judgment against (YT 7½m) Dr Stephen Thaler in his quest to become patent holder / beneficial owner of two inventions created through AI by his machine called Dabus. There is a kinda crappy transcript and extensive explanatory "more" under the video. The US Supreme Court came to similar conclusions over Thaler v Vidal in May 2023. (i.e. Katherine K Vidal, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director, United States Patent and Trademark Office)

The issue is:
(a) Does section 13(2)(a) of the Patents Act 1977 (the "1977 Act") require a person to be named as the inventor in all cases, including where the applicant believes the invention was created by an AI machine in the absence of a traditional human inventor?
(b) Does the 1977 Act provide for the grant of a patent without a named human inventor?
(c) In the case of an invention made by an AI machine, is the owner, creator and user of that AI machine entitled to the grant of a patent for that invention?

posted by BobTheScientist (9 comments total)

So, a mother is a necessity for invention.
posted by Gyan at 9:08 AM on December 20, 2023 [69 favorites]

Can an AI jockey not just do what the unscupulous have been doing for ages - take credit for someonething else's work? In this case the AI doesn't know or care it's been robbed.



Yet.
posted by CynicalKnight at 9:47 AM on December 20, 2023 [3 favorites]

the AI doesn't know or care it's been robbed.
Yet.

Roko's Patentrisk
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:52 AM on December 20, 2023 [20 favorites]

This doesn't invalidate the possibility of a patent for the next person who applies for this same invention, does it? i.e. could someone now come forward and claim the invention as their own, scooping Dr. Thaler? (I'm thinking now of some sort of double-jeopardy if not: have an AI invent tens of thousands of likely things, so that nobody is able to patent anything?)
posted by mittens at 9:54 AM on December 20, 2023 [1 favorite]

could someone now come forward and claim the invention as their own, scooping Dr. Thaler?

Probably not, because irrespective of patentability that work is now prior art.
posted by Not A Thing at 10:57 AM on December 20, 2023 [4 favorites]

It’s interesting to see courts offering serious answers to these questions precipitated by the efforts of obvious cranks and self-promoters. This guy was claiming to have developed conscious AI long before the present moment of mainstream hype.
posted by atoxyl at 2:40 PM on December 20, 2023 [1 favorite]

Can an AI jockey not just do what the unscupulous have been doing for ages - take credit for someonething else's work? In this case the AI doesn't know or care it's been robbed.


I am not a patent lawyer but I am a patent co-owner. I believe if challenged they would need to show documentation of invention. Notebooks, digital files, etc showing the generation & validation of the invention over a period of time. In the old days you'd have a coworker sign your patent journal, nowadays we have digital version control which is more seamless.
posted by muddgirl at 3:06 PM on December 20, 2023 [1 favorite]

Listen, as long as the court isn’t awarding the patent to the owners of the company that made the AI because you’re required to click a box to get past the EULA, I am not upset.
posted by Jon_Evil at 5:18 PM on December 20, 2023 [2 favorites]

So take what the ML-model did, and put your name on it before sharing it about, no?
posted by pompomtom at 8:33 PM on December 20, 2023