Imagine that you ask the AI to design a new product for you and that it creates a marketing campaign for that product. This turns out to be a success and you become a millionaire. Well, the United Kingdom says that you cannot patent that idea.
The UK Supreme Court has ruled that AI cannot be named as the inventor of a new idea or product, as stated in a judgment that raises existential questions about our relationship with increasingly intelligent machines.
Lord Kitchin delivered the judgment on Wednesday: “We conclude that an ‘inventor’ must be a natural person. Only a person can conceive an invention.”
Trying to get the patent since 2018
The case was first heard in 2018 by the founder of Imagination Engines, Stephen Thaler, who sought patents naming his AI machine DABUS as the inventor.
Thaler requested several courts to have DABUS listed as the inventor of a food container that robots can easily grab, and a flashing warning light designed to draw attention during emergencies.
Both the European Patent Office (EPO) and the Intellectual Property Office of the United Kingdom (UKIPO) rejected the application, arguing that the designated inventor in the application had to be a human being, not a machine.
The decision has now been confirmed by the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, the first time a case of this nature has reached the highest court of a country.
Thaler is part of the Artificial Inventor Project, a team of researchers and lawyers seeking intellectual property rights for the results generated by AI in the absence of a traditional human inventor or author.
They argue that granting patent rights to AI systems would encourage companies to invest in the development of AI systems, as they would have more confidence that they could patent the results.
While authorities in the US, Europe, and the UK have barely considered the idea, DALUS surprisingly obtained patent rights in both South Africa and Australia, which sparked a significant backlash.
Be that as it may, the ruling raises a series of major questions about the role of intelligent machines in our society.
