Artificial intelligence (AI) cannot invent things and therefore cannot be the inventor of new patents, the UK Court of Appeal has ruled. Patents assign the ownership of a new invention to its creator and that the inventor must be a real human person under UK law.

At its core, the argument is about whether a law written for human inventors can be applied to machines. The appeal court ruled against Stephen Thaler who took a case against the UK’s Intellectual Property Office (IPO) which refused patents to his AI.

Earlier this month, Mr Thaler lost a similar case in the United States – although he has won in Australia and South Africa.

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