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Landmark case to challenge AI inventorship
International law firm Allens is heading to the High Court of Australia for a matter that will determine whether or not an artificial intelligence (AI) system can be named as an inventor of a patent.
Emma Musgrave
The firm is acting for Dr Stephen Thaler, founder and chief engineer at IEI and AI director at Scentient.
Representing Dr Thaler will be Allens senior IP counsel Richard Hamer and managing associate Lauren John.
“In a world first, Allens, representing Dr Thaler, initially succeeded before the Federal Court in challenging a decision of the Commissioner of Patents that only humans can be named as inventors. The Commissioner of Patents had rejected a patent application filed by Dr Thaler, which named the AI system DABUS (Device for Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience) as the inventor. That decision was then overturned on appeal by the Full Court,” the firm’s statement explained.
“Dr Thaler has applied for special leave to appeal the Full Court’s decision to the High Court. The High Court has indicated that the oral hearing will be listed in November 2022.”
The final decision is set to establish a major precedent for AI-related matters going forward, according to Allens.
“As AI is increasingly contributing to research and development efforts, whether patent protection is given for AI-generated inventions will have significant ramifications for stakeholders across a wide range of industries, such as the pharmaceutical industry where machine learning is becoming an important tool utilised to achieve effective, cheaper and quicker drug discovery.
“The DABUS application was filed as part of the Artificial Inventor Project, spearheaded by Dr Ryan Abbott of the University of Surrey, which has been advocating across the globe for AI to be capable of being named as an inventor.”
Emma Musgrave
Emma Musgrave (née Ryan) is the managing editor, professional services at Momentum Media.
Emma has worked for Momentum Media since 2015, including five years spent as the editor of the company's legal brand - Lawyers Weekly. Throughout her time at Momentum, she has been responsible for breaking some of the biggest stories in corporate Australia. In addition, she has produced exclusive multimedia and event content related to the company's respective brands and audiences.
Prior to joining Momentum Media, Emma worked in breakfast radio, delivering news to the Central West region of NSW, before taking on a radio journalist role at Southern Cross Austereo, based in Townsville, North Queensland.
She holds a Bachelor of Communications (Journalism) degree from Charles Sturt University.
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