Japan: IP High Court Says “AI cannot be an inventor” under the current patent act

A patent application for “food container and devices and methods for attracting enhanced attention,” which named “DABUS” (the name of the AI system) as the inventor was dismissed by the Japan Patent Office on October 13, 2021. Thereafter, the plaintiff filed a lawsuit with the Tokyo District Court seeking revocation of the dismissal. The plaintiff’s challenge to the decision argued that the term “invention” in the Japan’s Patent Act should include AI-generated inventions created without the involvement of natural persons, and that it should not be mandatory to list a natural person as the inventor on a patent application. The Tokyo District Court ruled that inventors should be limited to natural persons, and therefore the dismissal was lawful. The plaintiff appealed...To read the full article, please see the PDF file

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