With information from: https://hipertextual.com/2022/08/estados-unidos-inteligencia-artificial-inventor

The United States Court of Appeals for the North American Federal Circuit ratified the decision of the district judge in Alexandria, Leonie Brinkema, who ruled last year that an AI (Artificial Intelligence) could not patent its creations because it was not a human being. 

In this case, Judge Leonard Stark again dismissed the claims of scientist Stephen Thaler, creator of the DABUS system, capable of making inventions through the use of artificial intelligence, using the same argument that had already been on the table: “if it is not a natural person, he is not an inventor”. 

The magistrate emphasized that the US Patent Law is very clear and does not require too much analysis. “Statutes are often open to multiple reasonable readings. Not so here. This is a case where the question of legal interpretation begins and ends with the plain meaning of the text. In Patent Law, “individuals” (and thus the “inventors”) are unequivocally natural persons. 

Accordingly, we have no need to consider additional legal construction tools.” Likewise, the Judge assured that Thaler’s arguments are speculative and unsubstantiated. “When a statute unambiguously and directly answers the question before us, our analysis does not stray beyond the plain text. 

Here, Congress has determined that only a natural person can be an inventor, so AI cannot be. Accordingly, the decision of the district court is upheld,” the document concludes. It is worth mentioning that Thaler has referred to the fact that in South Africa AI has already been recognized as inventor, however, the Court of Appeals was forceful in this regard. 

Since that country is not governed by US Patent Law, a decision cannot be made based on that background. And although in countries like Australia this issue has also been the subject of debate, most of the verdicts in other territories of the European Union have gone against what Thaler requested. 

Finally, Judge Brinkema stated that: “It may be that, at some point, AI reaches a level of sophistication such that it can satisfy the accepted meanings of the inventor. But that time has not yet come and, if it does, it will be up to Congress to decide how, if you want, to expand the scope of the Patent Law”.