Australian Judge Becomes the First Jurist to Rule that Artificial Intelligence (AI) Systems Can Be Recognized as a Patent Inventor
August 10, 2021An Australian judge has become the first jurist to rule that artificial intelligence (AI) systems can be recognized as an inventor on patent applications. Specifically, Justice Beach, of the Australian Federal Court, found that an inventor can be "non-human." The patent applications at issue listed an AI inventor named DABUS ("device for the autonomous bootstrapping of unified sentience"). This decision is a split from rulings of other jurisdictions (such as the U.S. and the U.K.) that have considered the same DABUS applications, and that have found that only humans can be listed as inventors. To date, South Africa (recently) has been the only other country to allow AI inventors.
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