Legal experts submit two machine-designed products in landmark test of patent law

At first glance, there is nothing special about two particular patent applications filed with agencies around the world this week: the first for a food container; the second for a flashing light to be used in emergency situations.

Except for one key detail: these products were designed by a machine.

In a landmark challenge to the international patents regime, a band of legal experts has called on authorities in the US and EU to recognise the “inventorship” of artificial intelligence, highlighting growing anxieties among lawmakers about the rise of machines in the creative process.

The team, led by Ryan Abbott, professor of law and health sciences at the University of Surrey, submitted applications to the US Patent and Trademark Office, the European Patent Office, and the UK Intellectual Property Office.

This week, they informed the

UKIPO and EPO the two were in fact the work of a machine called Dabus (“device for the autonomous bootstrapping of unified sentience”), itself created by Dr Stephen Thaler, an AI expert based in Missouri.

Drawing on thousands of abstract pieces of information, including words and images, Dabus was “mentored” by Dr Thaler over a two-month period to produce increasingly complex concepts.

Its first workable design detailed a food container capable of changing shape. The second outlined a flashlight system (or “neural flame”) capable of drawing attention in an emergency situation.

“Whatever you think of the ideas on their own, that’s not really the point,” he said. “What’s striking is that the machine invented in two very different areas, neither of which its programmer had any background in.”

Under the UK Patents Act 1977 and the European Patent Convention, inventorship is restricted to “natural persons”. Likewise in the US, patent laws refer only to “individuals” as eligible inventors.