U.K. Appellate Court Rules Artificial Neural Network Application Is Not Patent-Eligible Subject Matter

Although artificial neural networks (ANNs) have evolved to increasingly form the backbone of modern commerce, their patentability remained unsettled. A July 19, 2024 decision of a U.K. appellate court now provides some guidance to AI-driven companies, finding that a trained ANN to provide song recommendations is not patentable.

From the time ANNs emerged as the backbone of today's most impactful artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, there has been uncertainty about what aspects of ANNs are patentable. The general thinking in the patent profession has been that the core mathematical algorithms in ANNs are not patentable, while practical and technical applications of ANNs and ancillary technologies may be.