Artificial Intelligence Systems Cannot be Inventors on a Patent Application
| October 5, 2022
Thaler v. Vidal
Decided: August 5, 2022
Moore, Taranto and Stark. Opinion by Stark
Summary:
This case decided the issue of whether an artificial intelligence (AI) software system can be an inventor on a patent application. The USPTO concluded that an inventor is limited to natural persons. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia agreed and granted the USPTO summary judgment. The CAFC affirmed the District Court concluding that an inventor must be a natural person.
Details:
Thaler developed the Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Science which is referred to as “DABUS.” DABUS is described as “a collection of source code or programming and a software program.” Thaler filed two patent applications at the USPTO listing DABUS as the sole inventor. Thaler stated that he did not contribute to the conception of the inventions and that any person having skill in the art could have taken DABUS’ output and reduced the ideas in the applications to practice.
For the inventor’s last name, Thaler wrote that “the invention was generated by artificial intelligence.” For the oath/declaration requirement, Thaler submitted a statement on behalf of DABUS. In a Statement on Inventorship, Thaler explained that DABUS was “a particular type of connectionist artificial intelligence” called a “Creativity Machine.” Thaler also filed an assignment assigning all of DABUS’ rights to himself.
The PTO mailed a Notice to File Missing Parts for each application requiring that Thaler identify valid inventors. Thaler petitioned the PTO to vacate the notices. However, the PTO denied the petitions on the ground that “a machine does not qualify as an inventor.” Thaler then challenged the petition decision in District Court. The District Court granted the PTO’s motion for summary judgment concluding that “an ‘inventor’ under the Patent Act must be an ‘individual’ and the plain meaning of ‘individual’ as used in the statute is a natural person.”
Thaler appealed the District Court’s decision to the CAFC. The CAFC stated that “[t]he sole issue on appeal is whether an AI software system can be an ‘inventor’ under the Patent Act. The CAFC first looked to the plain meaning of the Patent Act. The Patent Act defines an “inventor” as “the individual or, if a joint invention, the individuals collectively who invented or discovered the subject matter of the invention.” 35 U.S.C. 100(f). Citing § 115, the CAFC stated that the Patent Act also consistently refers to inventors as “individuals,” and uses personal pronouns “himself” and “herself” to refer to an “individual.” The Patent Act does not define “individuals,” but the CAFC looked to Supreme Court precedent and stated that “as the Supreme Court has explained, when used as a noun, ‘individual’ ordinarily means a human being, a person.
The CAFC also looked to dictionary definitions of “individual” which is defined as a human being. The CAFC also referred to the Dictionary Act which states that “person” and “whoever” broadly include “unless the context dictates otherwise,” “corporations, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, and joint stock companies, as well as individuals.” 1 U.S.C. § 1. The CAFC interprets the Dictionary Act as meaning that Congress understands “individual” to mean natural persons unless otherwise noted.
Thaler argued that the Patent Act uses “whoever” in §§ 101 and 271. With regard to § 101, the CAFC stated that this section uses “whoever,” but § 101 also states that patents must satisfy the “conditions and requirements” of Title 35 of the U.S. Code, including the definition of inventor. Regarding § 271, the CAFC stated that this section refers to infringement, however, “That non-humans may infringe patents does not tell us anything about whether non-humans may also be inventors of patents.”
Thaler also argued that AI software must qualify as inventors because otherwise patentability would depend on “the manner in which the invention was made,” in contravention of 35 U.S.C. § 103. However, the CAFC stated that § 103 is not about inventorship. The cited provision of § 103 refers to how an invention is made, and does not outweigh the statutory provision addressing who may be an inventor.
The CAFC also referred to its own precedent stating that inventors must be natural persons and cannot be corporations or sovereigns. Univ. of Utah v. Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Forderung der Wissenschaften E.V., 734 F.3d 1315, 1323 (Fed. Cir. 2013); Beech Aircraft Corp. v. EDO Corp., 990 F.2d 1237, 1248 (Fed. Cir. 1993).
Thaler also raised some policy arguments stating that “inventions generated by AI should be patentable in order to encourage innovation and public disclosure.” However, the CAFC stated that this is speculative and lacks a basis in the text of the Patent Act and in the record, and anyway, the text in the statue is unambiguous.
The CAFC concluded that the Patent Act unambiguously and directly answers the question regarding whether AI can be an inventor and stated that “Congress has determined that only a natural person can be an inventor, so AI cannot be.”
Comments
According to Thaler, South Africa has granted patents with DABUS as an inventor. However, this will not be possible in the US unless the Supreme Court steps in (which does not seem likely) or Congress amends the Patent Act.
