UK Supreme Court rules AI can’t be patent inventor

The UK Supreme Court ruled this week that an AI system cannot be named as an inventor on a patent, ending a five-year legal battle over AI-generated inventions.

The case, Thaler v Comptroller General, asked whether an AI system called DABUS could be listed as the inventor on patent applications for inventions the AI generated autonomously.

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that under UK patent law, an inventor must be a natural person. The DABUS applications were rejected.

The ruling’s significance:

The ruling closes a long-running legal question that had divided patent offices worldwide. The US, EU, and Australia have all reached similar conclusions, but the UK position now has the weight of the Supreme Court behind it.

The ruling doesn’t affect AI-assisted inventions. If a human uses AI as a tool to make an invention, the human is still the inventor. The ruling only addresses cases where the AI generated the invention autonomously with no human inventor.

Implications for AI-generated inventions:

AI-generated inventions without a human inventor cannot be patented in the UK. This means:

• The invention is in the public domain (no patent protection).
• The first person to publicly disclose the invention has no exclusive rights.
• Competitors can freely copy the invention.

This is a significant disincentive for AI-generated invention in the UK. Companies developing AI invention tools have argued that the inability to patent AI-generated inventions discourages investment.

The counterargument is that the public domain benefits everyone, and AI-generated inventions are essentially the work of the AI’s training data creators (who have already been compensated).

The international picture:

The UK joins a growing consensus that AI cannot be a patent inventor. The US Federal Circuit ruled similarly in 2022. The EU Patent Convention was amended in 2025 to require a human inventor. Japan and South Korea have issued non-binding guidance in the same direction.

The UK ruling is significant because of the Supreme Court’s explicit reasoning. The Court considered whether the word “inventor” in the Patents Act 1944 should be interpreted broadly to include AI, and concluded that it should not. Parliament, not the courts, should make that change if desired.

For UK organisations developing AI invention tools, the ruling means they should consider trade secret protection rather than patent protection for AI-generated inventions. Trade secrets don’t require an inventor at all.