In Thaler v Comptroller-General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks [2023] UKSC 49, the UK Supreme Court ruled that AI cannot be an ‘inventor’ for the purposes of UK patent law. The ruling concludes a series of appeals from Dr Stephen Thaler and his collaborators, who argued that an AI system called ‘DABUS’ should be named as the inventor of two new inventions generated autonomously by it relating to food and beverage packaging and light beacons. This was part of a series of test cases, which have had limited success globally, seeking to establish that AI systems can make inventions and that the owners of such systems can apply for and secure the grant of patents for those inventions. The judgment noted that the broader questions of whether an invention generated autonomously by AI ought to be patentable, or whether the meaning of the term ‘inventor’ should be expanded to include machines powered by AI, were matters of policy that would need to be addressed by legislation.

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