South Africa issues world's first patent listing AI as inventor

South Africa has become the first country to award a patent that names an artificial intelligence as its inventor and the AI’s owner as the patent's owner.

The patent was secured by University of Surrey professor Ryan Abbott and his team, who have been at odds with patent offices around the world for years over the need to recognise artificial intelligences as inventors.

Abbott was representing Dr Stephen Thaler, creator of an artificial neural system named Dabus ('device for the autonomous bootstrapping of unified sentience'), which Thaler claims is the sole inventor of a food container that improves grip and heat transfer.

Abbott and his team have filed patents listing Dabus as the inventor in more than ten jurisdictions since 2018, including in the UK, Europe and the US. The High Court in England and Wales last year sided with the UK Intellectual Property Office in refusing the applications, accepting that while Dabus created the inventions, it cannot be granted a patent on the grounds that it isn’t a ‘natural person’. The European Patent Office and the US Patent and Trademark Office objected on the same grounds, with Abbott’s team appealing.

Professor Adrian Hilton, director of the institute for people-centred AI at the University of Surrey in the UK, said the world was “moving from an age in which invention was the preserve of people to an era where machines are capable of realising the inventive step”.

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