Justice Beach of the Federal Court of Australia has decided that
an artificial intelligence system can be an "inventor"
for the purposes of the Patents Act. This is out of step with
decisions in the US, UK and Europe. So, does this decision make
Australia a world leading pioneer or an awkward outlier?
In Thaler v Commissioner of Patents (2021)
AIPC 92-594;
[2021] FCA 879, the invention disclosed by the patent is
described as "a container for food products including a series
of fractal elements enabling multiple containers to be coupled
together by inter-engagement, improving grip and heat transfer into
and out of the container."
Dr Thaler, the applicant in the patent proceedings, owns and
operated a device known as DABUS and Dr Thaler owns the copyright
in the source code presumably utilised by DABUS in its work that
resulted in the invention. Dr Thaler named DABUS as the inventor of
the invention for the purposes of patent protection but he remained
the
