Published on: 19 Feb, 2026 18:08 IST
Supreme Court of the United Kingdom delivered a unanimous judgment that has drawn global attention in the world of intellectual property and artificial intelligence. The Court dismissed an appeal filed by U.S. computer scientist Stephen Thaler, firmly ruling that an artificial intelligence system cannot be named as an “inventor” under UK patent law.
The case, Thaler v Comptroller-General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks, reinforces a fundamental principle of the UK’s patent regime: inventorship is human.
Dr. Thaler, based in Missouri, developed an AI system called DABUS (Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience). He claimed that DABUS independently created two inventions — a redesigned food container and a flashing emergency light beacon.
When filing patent applications with the UK Intellectual Property Office in 2018, Thaler listed DABUS as the inventor. He argued that since he owned and created the AI system, he was entitled to the patent rights arising from its output.
The UKIPO rejected the applications in December 2019, stating that under the Patents Act 1977, an inventor must be a natural person — not a machine.
Unwilling to concede, Thaler challenged the decision. His appeals before the High Court and the Court of Appeal failed, leading him to take the matter to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court focused on three key questions:
- Does the term “inventor” under the 1977 Act include an AI system?
- Can the owner of an AI claim patent rights over inventions created autonomously by that system?
- Did Thaler’s applications meet the legal requirement of identifying an inventor under Section 13(2) of the Act?
Importantly, the Court clarified that it was not deciding whether AI-generated innovations should be patentable as a matter of policy. Nor was it evaluating whether the law ought to evolve. The issue before it was much narrower: what does the current statute permit?
In a judgment authored by Lord Kitchin, the Court adopted a strict interpretation of the statute. The justices concluded that the Patents Act clearly envisions an inventor as a “natural person.”
Section 7 of the Act gives the right to apply for a patent to the inventor or someone legally entitled through them. That structure, the Court said, assumes a human inventor. Since DABUS is a machine, it cannot qualify.
The Court also rejected the argument that ownership of an AI system automatically transfers ownership of its creations. Owning a tool, it reasoned, does not make one the inventor of whatever the tool produces.
As Lord Kitchin noted, if Parliament wishes to grant patents for inventions made solely by machines, the legislation will need to be amended.
Because Thaler failed to identify a human inventor, his applications were deemed withdrawn for non-compliance with Section 13(2).
The ruling confirms that, under current UK law, only humans can be recognized as inventors. AI cannot hold inventorship status at least not yet.
The judgment leaves open an important policy debate. As AI systems grow more sophisticated and capable of generating complex technical solutions, lawmakers may face increasing pressure to revisit the legal framework.
For now, however, the position remains clear: AI-assisted inventions may still be patentable — provided a human can properly be identified as the inventor. What the law does not allow is an AI system being named as the sole inventor.
The UK is not alone in this approach. Similar applications by Thaler have been rejected in the United States by the United States Patent and Trademark Office, and the Supreme Court of the United States declined to hear his appeal. The European Patent Office and courts in Australia have also ruled against recognizing AI as an inventor.
These consistent outcomes across jurisdictions suggest that, for now, patent law around the world remains firmly human-centered even as technology rapidly evolves.