NIPC Law

Author Dietary Rabich   Licence CC BY-SA 4.0 Deed   S ource Wikimedia Commons Jane Lambert Supreme Court  (Lords Hodge, Kitchin, Hamblen, Leggatt and Richards)   Thaler v Comptroller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks   [2023] UKSC 49 (20 Dec 2023) I mentioned the hearing of the appeal from the Court of Appeal's judgment in  Thaler v Comptroller General of Patents Trade Marks And Designs   [2021] RPC 19, [2022] Bus LR 375, [2021] EWCA Civ 1374 in DABUS in the Supreme Court   on 12 April 2023.  On 20 Dec 2023, the Supreme Court dismissed that appeal in  Thaler v Comptroller-General of Patents, Designs and Trade Mark s [2023] UKSC 49.  The Court's judgment was delivered by Lord Kitchin. What This Appeal Was Not About In paras [48] and [49] of his judgment, Lord Kitchin said: "[48] The Comptroller has emphasised, correctly in my view, that this appeal is not concerned with the broader question whether technical advances gener...

Lord Kitchin* Jane Lambert Supreme Court (Lords Hodge, Kitchin, Hamblen, Leggatt and Richards) Thaler v Comptroller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks 2 March 2023 "DABUS" stands for "Device for Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience". It was created by Dr Stephen L Thaler . who has trained it to invent  a food container  and  devices and enhanced devices and methods for attracting enhanced attention .  Dr Thaler has applied for patents for those inventions in several countries including the UK His applications have been rejected by the European, British and American and most of the world's other patent offices on the ground that an inventor must be a natural person.  The only country in which he has been successful is South Africa (see the South African Patent Journal July 2021 Vol 54 No 07 ). There is a list of Patents and Applications   for those inventions   on The Artificial Inventor Project website. In the United Kingdom, Dr T...

Drachma Coin depicting the Automaton Talon Author Jastrow   Copyright Released by owner Source Wikimedia Commons   Jane Lambert Court of Appeal (Lords Justices Arnold and Birss and Lady Justice Elisabeth Laing) Thaler v Comptroller of Patents, Trade Marks and Designs [2021] EWCA Civ 1374 (21 Sep 2021) This was an appeal by Dr Stephen Thaler against the decision of Mr Justice Marcus Smith in Thaler v The Comptroller-General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks [2020] EWHC 2412 (Pat) (21 Sept 2020) which I discussed in  Thaler v The Comptroller - The Patents Court decides whether Machines can be Inventors   on 22 Sept 2020.  Readers will recall that Mr Thaler has made a "creativity machine" called DABUS.  He alleged that DABUS had invented a Food Container and Devices and methods for obtaining advanced attention  which he applied to patent.  The Comptroller refused Dr Thaler's application and his decision was upheld by Mr Justice Marcus Smith....

Jane Lambert   Patents Court (Mr Justice Marcus Smith) Thaler v The Comptroller-General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks [2020] EWHC 2412 (Pat) (21 Sept 2020) DABUS was described by its owner, Dr Stephen Thaler, "as a type of 'Creativity Machine'".  I have mentioned it before in Artificial Intelligence - The DABUS Inventions   19 Feb 2020 and Artificial Intelligence and Intellectual Property   27 Dec 2019 NIPC News.  Dr Thaler claims that his machine has invented a Food Container  and Devices and methods for obtaining advanced attention .  Applications for patents for those inventions have been filed in the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Patent Office.  All three applications have been rejected on the grounds that an inventor must be a human being under the laws of the United Kingdom and the United States and the European Patent Convention. In Britain, Dr Thaler appealed to the Comptroller and his appeal was heard by Mr Huw...