Reuters reported that the UK Supreme Court ruled in a landmark case that AI cannot be the "inventor" of a patent .
Source: https://www.reuters.com/
American scientist Stephen Thaler submitted two patent applications in the UK in 2018, one for food packaging shape and one for flashlight. He said that these inventions were designed by the AI he created - DABUS.
The UK Intellectual Property Office rejected his application for patent registration at the time on the grounds that the inventor must be a human or company, not a machine. Stephen Thaler appealed to the UK Supreme Court.
The British Supreme Court recently rejected his appeal because according to British patent law, the inventor of a patent must be a natural person .
Britain's top judge, David Kitchin, said in a written ruling that the case did not involve the "broader" issue of whether technological advances resulting from autonomous actions of AI-driven machines should be patented.
Lawyers for Stephen Thaler said in a statement that the ruling determined that the UK's Patent Law is currently "completely unsuitable" to protect inventions produced independently by AI and is therefore "completely inadequate to support" any industry that relies on AI to develop new technologies .
Giles Parsons, another local lawyer, said the British Supreme Court's ruling was "not surprising." At the same time, he also believes that this decision will not have a significant impact on the patent system at this time. "This is because for now, AI is a tool rather than an agent. It is expected that this may change at a later stage, but we can address issues as they arise."