By Marco García Euroza. Lawyer.
On September 2, 2021, the District Court for the state of Eastern Virginia, US, issued a relevant decision regarding the inventorship of artificial intelligence (AI) on patents.
Summarizing, the plaintiff added an artificial intelligence system named DABUS, an acronym for Device for Autonomous Bootstrapping of United Sentience, as the inventor for two patent applications filed before the USPTO. In turn, the USPTO asked the applicant to submit proper information regarding the inventorship since the documents needed did not identify each inventor or his or her legal name. Applicant restated that DABUS should be listed as the inventor, and USPTO argued that the inventor was uniquely referred for human beings.
Given the lack of acceptance by the USPTO to include an AI as an inventor, Plaintiff later filed a civil action seeking to review of the USPTO’s decision. The District Court accepted the USPTO’s interpretation, arguing that the term “individual”, under the statutory language, referred to a natural person. Continue Reading