Artificial intelligence (AI) and intellectual property (IP) have been in the limelight for a while now and have caused quite a stir, especially since the number of inventions stemming from AI “teaming-up” with researchers rapidly increased in the last decade. The crux of the matter of this ascendent trend is whether AI can own IP rights, issue that has started to divide legal and tech experts.
The spark that lighted this debate is DABUS (Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience), an AI system created by Dr. Stephen Thaler that can function independently and create products on its own, for which Dr. Thaler has sought patents in 17 jurisdictions. Up until till this point, there is nothing out of the ordinary with filing for a patent, but Thaler filed national and international patent applications naming DABUS as the inventor. The applications challenged the traditional IP practice and raised the question whether only humans can be named inventors in a patent filing.
