Dabus creator sues USPTO for blocking AI patents
Physicist Stephen Thaler has sued US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) director Andrei Iancu and the
USPTO, in a challenge to the office's rejection of patent applications for inventions created by ‘creativity machine’ “Dabus”.
In the suit, filed at the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on August 6, Thaler claimed the USPTO's position was “anti-intellectual property and anti-business”. He added that it put US businesses at an international disadvantage compared to businesses in jurisdictions that will grant patents on AI-generated inventions, and there was a danger that future patent applicants may inaccurately list a person as an inventor.
Thaler also stated that the USPTO’s stance means that AI-generated inventions would enter the public domain once disclosed, which he alleged is “undesirable both as a matter of innovation policy and because there is no evidence that Congress intended to prohibit patents on AI-generated inventions”. Last year, a team at the University of Surrey in the UK filed patent applications in multiple jurisdictions listing an AI application, “Dabus”, as the sole inventor of a plastic food container and of a light beacon.
Ryan Abbott, professor of law and health sciences at the University of Surrey who led the team, told WIPR that the goal of the filings was to “raise awareness and effect change” in patent law. The campaign effectively proposes rewriting IP law, as no AI application has to date been recognised anywhere as the inventor on a granted patent. According to the team behind Dabus, the ban on AI-inventors is out of step with a rapidly changing economy in which machines and AI are becoming more powerful, and more important in driving innovation.
In April, the USPTO confirmed that an AI can’t be named as an inventor on a patent application, closing the door to appeals. According to the USPTO, the patent statutes preclude the “broad interpretation” that an ‘inventor’ could be construed to cover machines. It stated that granting patents to Thaler’s AI system would “contradict the plain reading of the patent statutes that refer to persons and individuals”.
The USPTO added that: “Title 35 of the United States Code consistently refers to inventors as natural persons … Therefore, interpreting ‘inventor’ broadly to encompass machines would contradict the plain reading of the patent statutes that refer to persons and individuals.”
In June the team behind Dabus appealed an adverse decision of the European Patent Office (EPO).The EPO rejected the application in December 2019, commenting that under the European Patent Convention (EPC), only human beings or ‘natural persons’ may be considered inventors.
In July, an LSPN Connect session explored the complex questions AI poses for the IP sector, in a discussion with Ryan Abbott and other AI experts.
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