Patent decision

BL number

O/741/19

Concerning rights in

GB1816909.4, GB1818161.0

Hearing Officer

Mr H Jones

Decision date

4 December 2019

Person(s) or Company(s) involved

Stephen L Thaler

Provisions discussed

Section 7 and 13, Rule 10

Keywords

Inventorship

Related Decisions

None

Summary

The decision relates to the question of whether a non-human inventor, e.g. an Artificial Intelligence (AI) machine, can be regarded an inventor under the Act and, if so, in what way has the right to the grant of a patent, which rests primarily with the inventor, been transferred to the applicant. The hearing officer found that reference in the Act and Rules to the inventor as being a person was intended to mean a human person, meaning that the naming of an AI machine as inventor failed to satisfy the requirement under section 13(2)(a). Also, given that machines do not have a legal personality and cannot own property, the hearing officer found that it was not possible to transfer a property right from the AI machine to the applicant by mere ownership of the AI machine, thus failing to meet the requirement of section 13(2)(b). The applications would be taken to be withdrawn for failure to meet the formal requirements of section 13 at the end of the prescribed period.

Full decision O/741/19 204Kb