December 20, 2023 | less than a minute read

UK Supreme Court Rules Inventor Must Be a Natural Person

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Austin Kim

Associate

Get in touch

Austin Kim

Associate

Stephen Thaler's quest to have patent offices throughout the world recognize AI agents as inventors is thwarted again, this time by the UK's Supreme Court. The court rejected Thaler's claims and held that an inventor must be a natural person, in line with other jurisdictions that have ruled on this issue.

[Thaler's] attempt to register the patents was refused by Britain's Intellectual Property Office on the grounds that the inventor must be a human or a company, rather than a machine. Thaler appealed to the UK's Supreme Court, which on Wednesday unanimously rejected his appeal as under UK patent law "an inventor must be a natural person".