What If Dabus Came to Africa? Visiting AI Inventorship and Ownership of Patent from the Nigerian Perspective
(2021) 42(2) Business Law Review 89-99
25 Pages Posted: 6 Apr 2021
Date Written: Novermber 7, 2020
Abstract
Dr Stephen Thaler’s artificial intelligent machine – DABUS (Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience) recently created two patentable devises that were the subject of patent applications in the European Patent Office (EPO), the United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO), the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and other patent offices, including under the Patent Cooperation Treaty system. Thaler named DABUS as the inventor in the applications and claimed to have acquired the right to patent from DABUS as its owner, employer and successor in title. The EPO, UKIPO and USPTO recently rejected the applications on the ground of non-compliance with the formal requirements of their respective patent legislation for failing to name a natural person as inventor. Based on a comparative study conducted as a desk research, the paper reviews the EPO, UKIPO and USPTO decisions against the backdrop of the ongoing policy and academic conversations on AI and patent policy. It then situates the decisions within the African context, especially under the Nigerian patent regime, and determines whether the Nigerian patent office will reach a different conclusion from those made by the EPO, UKIPO and USPTO should a similar patent application be considered in Nigeria.
Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, Inventorship, Patent Regimes, DABUS, EPO, UKIPO, USPTO, Nigeria
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation