In a sign of the times, the Federal Court of Australia
("FCA") has recently considered whether an artificial
intelligence machine is capable of being an "inventor"
for the purposes of the Australian Patents Act 1990 (Cth)
("Act") and corresponding Regulations.
On 30 July 2021 in the decision of Thaler v Commissioner of
Patents1, the FCA overturned a finding by the
Deputy Commissioner of Patents of the Australian Patents Office (IP
Australia) that the inventor on a patent application must be human
and that the artificial intelligence system referred to could not
be an inventor2.
Instead, the FCA held that an artificial intelligence system
called "DABUS" which was developed by Dr Stephen Thaler,
and was described as being a "....device for the
autonomous bootstrapping of unified sentience" could be
named as an inventor on a patent application for the purposes of
the Act.
