AI can't be listed as inventor on patent applications, Japan's top court rules

The book “against intellectual monopoly” has shaped a lot of my thinking on this topic - economists have looked at the various occasions in which patents were introduced into an industry (or extended in scope), and there is no evidence they actually improve innovation/efficiency/outcomes (including the pharma industry!). I was quite surprised as my whole life, it was sold to me as an incentive-boosting measure which in turn would lead to said outcomes.

With that lens, I welcome gradually phasing this stuff out, especially as we navigate into the unknown game-theory landscape AI-as-inventors brings.

Sanity! No AI has accountability so also should not own any benefits (not only patent but anything beneficial). Violate that and you created a blackhole of value creation.

The US also doesn't allow AI to be inventors. https://www.uspto.gov/subscription-center/2025/revised-inven...

I see it like a calculator, would u list a calculator as an inventor?

Can the petitioner re-file with his own name as the inventor, or does this mean that all AI-generated inventions are unable to be patented?

I don't personally feel the inevitable UBI/subsistance will make intellectual property much of a patentable/profitable field (...for too much longer), thanks to generative AIs' massive transformations (entrylevel &+).

The US ruled similarly to Japan, but years ago, from copyrights through patents... from my limited POV, the LLMs (specifically) and art models are just regurgitating stolen concepts... echo'ing Picasso's great artists steal! mantra. The US has already ruled this is legal (e.g. newspaper content isn't "stolen" when a genAI summarizes it for a 3rd-party user).

Having sat with published authors, discussing their work/book with LLMs... it is really an interesting perspective on "readers' perspective(s)" [human &not].

I know this is about the Japan and not the US, but software patent law has been incompatible with traditional IP protection in the US for a long time and it really doesn't make sense in the current age.

> "... the plaintiff submitted an application in 2020 for food containers and other items invented by DABUS, an artificial intelligence the plaintiff had created."

The plantiff is Stephen Thaler: https://imagination-engines.com/founder.html

If you were seriously trying to patent some AI-created invention, why would you claim it was created by AI? You would simply put your own name on it. This was obviously a case of pushing the envelope to see how far he could go.

One thing i've got to wonder. Would this always remain the case, at what point should society seriously consider the "personhood" of an AI (as a noun).

In my opinion, no jurisdiction in the world would be able to approve AI as an inventor on patent applications.

And for a very simple reason: you could easily overwhelm any intellectual property bureau just by having your AI drown them in AI slop. Even if most of these patents get refused, just refusing a patent is a lot of work, I imagine.

This is a news article about a dumb publicity stunt where a crank put his "AI" on a patent application, and the court said "you have to put your own name on it". It has no bearing whatsoever on debates about whether AI is good or bad, or whether it's ok that OpenAI looked at your Github, whether your coworker Gary is committing too much slop with Claude Code, or whatever else people want to make it about.

The plaintiff is Stephen Thaler who has made a career of this litigation all over the world.

To my knowledge, he has notched only one win (i.e., granted patent) in South Africa, where patents are only cursorily examined [1].

The last word in the US is from the Federal Circuit a couple of years ago [2]. Same basic outcome: only a human being can be an inventor.

That said, the new Director of the USPTO has indicated that inventors should feel free to use AI however much they want as long as a human name is on the patent. However, it should be stressed that the Director's guidelines have not been litigated yet.

[1] https://artificialinventor.com/patent/

[2] https://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions-orders/21-2347.OPINIO...

This is fixable by simply replacing the AI with a human I dont think the laws catch or can determine the differences

Well who invented it then? User of said AI or owner of said AI or no one?

> Your AI slop is effectively public domain.

This ruling, like most in other countries, seems to support the position that a human can patent of copyright work done with AI assistance:

"The Patent Office ordered the plaintiff to provide the name of a person as the inventor. The plaintiff refused to do so, and the application was rejected."

If you’re in the EEA or UK and reject the tracking, you can still use your browser’s Reader Mode to read the text. Or on the console:

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Thats why *SOME* humans will still be needed. They'll be accountability sinks when (NOT IF) the AI in charge goes off the rails. The human will then be summarily be blamed.

This is how the reverse centaur operation works. LLMs suck and not work in increasingly bad ways, and the companies who sell them treat them as one would buy psychic services (read: entertainment). So they need a token human to person-wash this slop.

I really can't understand the moral compass of people who would pirate other peoples' works under "fair use" to train AI, only to turn around and try to claim ownership of them when AI regurgitates it.

This is consistent with rulings in other courts globally around IP rights. IP protects content created by humans. Your AI slop is effectively public domain.

If an AI can invent something then it should be considered obvious.