TOKYO -- The Intellectual Property High Court has upheld a May 2024 Tokyo District Court decision dismissing an appeal by AI developers seeking to make it possible for artificial intelligence (AI) to be recognized as an inventor in patent cases.

Presiding Judge Hibiki Shimizu concluded that inventors must be human. The lawsuit centered on the autonomous AI DABUS, developed by U.S.-based scientist Stephen Thaler. The developers had sought patents for two inventions in August 2020, naming DABUS as the inventor, but were rejected, prompting the lawsuit.

The court noted that patent application procedures assume inventors are human and there are no regulations governing the procedures for granting patents to non-humans. It stated that only inventions with human inventors are eligible for patents. The developers argued that the concept of AI-generated inventions did not exist when the Patent Act was enacted, claiming it is unfair not to protect such inventions due to the lack of provisions in the law.

However, the ruling emphasized that granting patents to AI-generated inventions requires extensive and careful consideration of various societal impacts, concluding that AI-generated inventions should not be protected through legal interpretation when the current laws are not premised on such inventions.

The developers' attorney said they would seek a Supreme Court ruling due to the significant legal and social implications. Similar lawsuits have been filed worldwide, with courts consistently ruling that inventors must be human. In Japan, the protection of AI-generated inventions under the patent system remains a topic of discussion.

(Japanese original by Ran Kanno, Tokyo City News Department)