Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Patent Law in the GCC Nations
Noura Hezam Almutairi · 2025
Advanced AI systems are capable of inventing without human intervention. For example, Device for Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience (DABUS) is an AI system that invented two inventions. Dr Stephen Thaler is the inventor of DABUS and claimed that he did not create those inventions independently. Then, Dr Thaler filed patent applications for DABUS as the inventor in different countries. Although DABUS challenges patent law globally, this chapter focuses on the Arab States of the Gulf (GCC) since Saudi Arabia is a member and the only country in the MENA region that received the applications. The GCC countries have a uniform patent law: the Patent Regulation of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf and its Implementing Bylaws (PRGCC). The chapter examines the extent to which the PRGCC accommodates inventions generated by AI systems and, if it cannot, what adjustments are deemed necessary, and how the patent legal system in the GCC countries can be revamped to keep up with the AI systems. Although the chapter focuses on patent Law in the GCC jurisdictions, it refers to other jurisdictions—namely, the European Patent Office, the UK, the US, Australia and South Africa to examine how they dealt with case law, namely DABUS as an inventor.