Artificial Intelligence Cannot Serve as an Inventor of a Patentable Invention Chinese & English
- cindy Wu
- Sep 2, 2022
- 3 min read
Artificial Intelligence Cannot Serve as an Inventor of a Patentable Invention
Friday, September 2, 2022
Last month, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (the “Federal Circuit”) ruled that only human beings may qualify as inventors of patentable inventions. See Thaler v. Vidal, Appeal No. 2021-2347 (Fed. Cir. Aug. 5, 2022). In the case at issue, computer scientist Stephen Thaler developed an artificial intelligence system for which he coined the name “DABUS” (“Device for Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Science”), and which is the “creativity machine” named as the sole inventor on patent applications for a food container and a light beacon. Thaler argued that the United States Trademark and Patent Office should recognize AI alongside humans as “individuals” who are eligible inventors of patentable inventions under the Patent Act.
The Federal Circuit ruled against Thaler, explaining that the AI system DABUS does not fit within the definition of the term “individual” as used in the Patent Act because that term refers only to human beings. The Federal Circuit acknowledged that the statutory text of the Patent Act does not expressly define the term “individual,” but was comfortable relying on 2012 Supreme Court precedent that defined the term, stating “when used as a noun, ‘individual’ ordinarily means a human being, a person.” Id. (internal citations omitted). Moreover, the Federal Circuit reasoned that the Patent Act’s use of the pronouns “himself” and “herself” suggest that Congress intended patent inventors to be limited to human beings, because, had Congress intended to extend patent inventorship beyond humans, the term “itself” would be included in the statute to allow for non-human inventors. Id.
While this recent ruling serves to affirm earlier decisions of the United States Patent and Trademark Office and the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia to exclude AI as inventors, public comments from Thaler’s attorneys suggest the fight is not over. Thaler intends to appeal the Federal Circuit’s decision and request that the Supreme Court take up the issue of AI inventorship under the Patent Act. Meanwhile, Thaler has received similar rulings in jurisdictions outside the U.S., such as the European Union, the United Kingdom, and Australia (although a South African court has sided with Thaler and DABUS). Thaler is also suing the U.S. Copyright Office on a similar issue – whether an AI can author copyrighted material under the Copyright Act.
人工智能不能作为可专利发明的发明者
2022年9月2日，星期五
上个月，美国联邦巡回上诉法院（“联邦巡回法院”）裁定，只有人类才有资格成为可专利发明的发明者。参见 Thaler 诉 Vidal，上诉号 2021-2347（联邦法院，2022 年 8 月 5 日）。在本案中，计算机科学家 Stephen Thaler 开发了一个人工智能系统，他为此创造了“DABUS”（“统一科学的自主引导设备”）这个名称，它是被命名为“创意机器”的唯一发明者。食品容器和灯标的专利申请。 Thaler 认为，美国商标和专利局应将 AI 与人类一起视为“个人”，根据《专利法》，他们是可专利发明的合格发明者。
联邦巡回法院对 Thaler 作出裁决，解释说 AI 系统 DABUS 不符合《专利法》中使用的“个人”一词的定义，因为该词仅指人类。联邦巡回法院承认，《专利法》的法定文本并未明确定义“个人”一词，但可以放心地援引 2012 年最高法院对该词进行定义的先例，指出“当用作名词时，‘个人’通常意味着人，一个人。” ID。 （内部引用省略）。此外，联邦巡回法院推断，《专利法》对代词“他自己”和“她自己”的使用表明国会打算将专利发明人限于人类，因为如果国会打算将专利发明人扩展到人类之外，“本身”一词”将包含在法规中，以允许非人类发明者。 ID。
虽然最近的这项裁决有助于确认美国专利商标局和美国弗吉尼亚州东区地方法院先前将人工智能排除在发明者之外的决定，但泰勒律师的公开评论表明，这场斗争还没有结束。 Thaler 打算对联邦巡回法院的决定提出上诉，并要求最高法院根据《专利法》处理人工智能发明人的问题。与此同时，Thaler 在美国以外的司法管辖区收到了类似的裁决，例如欧盟、英国和澳大利亚（尽管南非法院支持 Thaler 和 DABUS）。 Thaler 还在类似的问题上起诉美国版权局——人工智能是否可以根据《版权法》创作受版权保护的材料。
Citation: Artificial Intelligence Cannot Serve as an Inventor of a Patentable Invention
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