Download This PaperCreative Machines, Orphan Inventions: AI and the Concept of Inventor at the EPO
in: Marie Karlsson-Tuula, Per Jonas Nordell, Frantzeska Papadopoulou, Annina H. Persson (eds) Magna Mater Marianne Levin (Festskrift) (Jure Förlag AB, Stockholm, 2022)
19 Pages Posted: 2 Nov 2022
Date Written: April 29, 2022
Abstract
In 2018, an AI system named DABUS (Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience) was credited by its creator to have independently developed a number of inventions. DABUS creator, supported by a team of interested academic legal scholars and patent attorneys has launched an international campaign testing the boundaries of patent law concerning the designation of inventor.
This chapter analyses the ongoing attempts to patent the output of this AI system at the EPO, the decision of the receiving section and legal board of appeal, discussing a selection of relevant points of law raised by this case. Several decisions concerning attempts to patent the DABUS output have been issued at national level. These will also be very briefly analyzed to provide context to the ensuing discussion on de lege ferenda proposals for eventual legislative interventions regarding what is here described and coined as orphan inventions.
Keywords: AI Inventorship; AI inventions; Concept of Inventor; Patentability of AI outputs; AI & patent Law; AI & Law
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