The Australian Federal Court was the first and only court
worldwide to decide that an artificial intelligence
(AI) can be named as an inventor on a
patent. However, on 13 April 2022, an enlarged five-judge bench of
the Full Federal Court unanimously overturned that decision,
finding that only a natural person could be an inventor under
Australian law in Commissioner of Patents v Thaler [2022] FCAFC 62.
Background
In 2019, Dr Stephen Thaler filed a PCT application naming an AI
machine known as DABUS (Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of
Unified Sentience) as the inventor. Dr Thaler is the owner of the
copyright in the DABUS source code and the computer on which DABUS
operates, as well as being responsible for its maintenance and
running costs.
