Technology
US Supreme Court asked to decide if AI can be a patent 'inventor'
A computer scientist who has waged a global campaign for patents covering inventions conceived by his artificial intelligence system asked the US Supreme Court on Friday to hear his case.
Stephen Thaler petitioned the high court to review an appeals court's decision that patents can only be issued to human inventors and that his AI system cannot be the legal creator of inventions it generated.
Thaler said in his brief that AI is being used to innovate in fields ranging from medicine to energy, and that rejecting AI-generated patents "curtails our patent system's ability — and thwarts Congress's intent — to optimally stimulate innovation and technological progress."
Thaler has said that his DABUS system, short for Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience, generated unique prototypes for a beverage holder and light beacon on its own.
The US Patent and Trademark Office and a Virginia federal court rejected patent applications for the inventions on the grounds that DABUS is not a person. The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld those decisions last year and said US patent law unambiguously requires inventors to be human beings.
Thaler told the high court that the law should not be read to require a human inventor.
"Nowhere in the text of the Patent Act has Congress restricted the term 'inventor' — or the word 'individual' within its definition — solely to natural persons," Thaler's petition said.
The petition said that laws like the Patent Act "employ broad language that is meant to accommodate technological change."
The US Copyright Office also denied Thaler's application for copyright protection for AI-generated art, which Thaler has appealed. In a separate dispute, the office also rejected copyrights for images an artist made with the generative AI system Midjourney in February.
Thaler has also applied for DABUS patents in other countries, including the United Kingdom, South Africa, Australia and Saudi Arabia. The UK's Supreme Court heard his case there earlier this month.
-
Technology6h ago
What to Know About Meta’s ‘Political Content’ Limit—and How to Turn It Off on Instagram
-
Technology12h ago
New York Deploys Hundreds of Officers in Crackdown on Subway Fare Evasion
-
Technology12h ago
U.S., U.K., and New Zealand Accuse China of Cyberattacks Targeting Politicians, Voters
-
Technology19h ago
Cancer often requires more than one treatment − an oncologist explains why some patients like Kate Middleton receive both chemotherapy and surgery
-
Technology19h ago
Horses lived in the Americas for millions of years – new research helps paleontologists understand the fossils we’ve found and those that are missing from the record
-
Technology1d ago
Apple announces dates for WWDC 2024
-
Technology1d ago
Musk's xAI to enable chatbot Grok for all premium subscribers
-
Technology1d ago
Researchers Find Apple M1 Chip Vulnerability, There Is No Way To Prevent Hackers From Encryption Keys