AI Can’t Be Named Inventor on Patent, Agency Says (1)

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office said it can only issue patents to humans, confirming that U.S. law bars artificial intelligence from being listed as an inventor.

Patent law precludes “such a broad interpretation” that an inventor can be a machine, the agency said in a decision Monday.

Interpreting the term ‘inventor’ in patent law “to encompass machines would contradict the plain reading of the patent statutes that refer to persons and individuals,” the agency said.

The patent office’s decision came in its rejection of an application from the Artificial Inventor Project that listed the machine, called Dabus, as the ...