A computer using artificial intelligence can’t be listed as an inventor on patents because only a human can be an inventor under U.S. law, a federal judge ruled in the first American decision that’s part of a global debate over how to handle computer-created innovation.
Federal law requires that an “individual” take an oath that he or she is the inventor on a patent application, and both the dictionary and legal definition of an individual is a natural person, ruled U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Alexandria, Virginia.
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The case is Thaler v. Hirshfeld, 20-903, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia (Alexandria).
One to watch, with CoPilot and lots of GPT-3 tools, we’ll see where this goes. Getting something patented that has AI might be a way to get a corporation listed as a patent holder vs what’s required now (humans). I have not seen an attempt to have a legal representative of a deceased person + AI/GPT-3 get a patent yet, but that’s probably in the works.
Pictured above “AI cannot be granted patents on inventions” made with VQGAN+CLIP.
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