AI Inventorship Ruling Inches Closer to Supreme Court Appeal (1)

The nation’s top patent court declined to reexamine inventor Stephen Thaler’s claims that artificial intelligence systems should be recognized as inventors in their own right, clearing the way for his planned Supreme Court appeal.

The Federal Circuit shot down Thaler’s requests for panel and full-court rehearing in an order Thursday, after it ruled in August that the term “individual” in the Patent Act refers only to humans.

Thaler has maintained that his “creativity machine,” called DABUS, is the sole inventor on patent applications for a food container and a light beacon. The US Patent and Trademark Office denied the applications ...