The highest court in the UK has upheld its earlier decision to disallow artificial intelligence to be named as an inventor in a patent application.
The UK High Court and Court of Appeal had recently ruled in favour of the intellectual property office (IPO) in the case of technologist Dr Stephen Thaler. Dr Thaler wanted to have his AI, named Dabus, listed as the inventor of a food container and flashing light beacon.
However, the Supreme Court backed the decisions of the courts to reject his bid, saying only a person could be labelled as an inventor and therefore have patent rights. The court judgment does not deal with whether or not the AI did indeed invent the food container and beacon.
"Naturally, I feel disappointed by this decision, highlighting the ongoing clash between human and machine intelligence," said Dr Thaler after the ruling was announced. He believes that Dabus is a "conscious and sentient form of machine intelligence", reports the BBC.
While the IPO welcomed the Supreme Court's decision, they also told the BBC that: "The Government will nevertheless keep this area of law under review to ensure that the UK patent system supports AI innovation and the use of AI in the UK."
The precedence that this case sets raises interesting questions around intellectual property laws as AI grows ever more common. When work is created using AI, is it the person using the AI who owns the property or the programmer who designed the AI?
It's indicative of a wider conversation around whether some laws will need to be tweaked, amended, or even made anew in a world with more and more prevalent uses of AI.
While some see AI as a creative tool of its own, others see it merely as an instrument. You wouldn't give patent rights to an electric musical instrument used to create a song, so why should AI be any different?
Others like Dr Thaler see AI as a new form of consciousness. However, the UK Supreme Court disagreed with that argument.
Nonetheless, the IPO acknowledged in its statement "that there are legitimate questions as to how the patent system and indeed intellectual property more broadly should handle [AI] creations".
"The response concluded that there should be no legal change to UK patent law now, and noted that many share the view that any future change would need to be at an international level. The decision of the Supreme Court does not alter that conclusion," the IPO added.
