Patent pending: the law on AI inventorship
Laura Adde, Joel Smith · Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice · 2021
Thaler v The Comptroller-General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks [2020] EWHC 2412 (Pat) The High Court of England and Wales recently decided that an artificial intelligence (AI) system cannot be named as inventor on a patent application within the meaning of the Patents Act 1977, simply because an AI is not a person—but with the UK Intellectual Property Office ("UKIPO") calling for views on AI inventorship, could a change in law be on the horizon? There is no existing legislation or case law on AI inventorship in the UK, so the judge in this case was required to turn to the Patents Act 1977 (the ‘Act’), and case law on inventorship generally, in order to determine whether the law currently permits an AI to be named as inventor on a patent application. Section 7(3) of the Act defines the ‘inventor’ as ‘the actual deviser of the invention’. The...