Background
Stephen Thaler appealed against the Commissioner of Patents’ refusal of his DABUS applications in Australia. The Full Federal Court unanimously overturned the earlier Federal Court ruling in his favour and confirmed that only a natural person can be an inventor under the Patents Act 1990.
AI interaction
‘The law confers rights on persons, and only a person can be an inventor for the purposes of the Act.’ The judgment aligned Australia with other jurisdictions, reinforcing a consistent international approach that excludes AI inventorship.
Note: DABUS (Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Science) is an AI system created by Stephen Thaler. Thaler pursued parallel test cases worldwide, naming DABUS as inventor to challenge the limits of patent law. Courts and offices in the UK, EPO, Australia and USA all reached the same outcome: only humans can be inventors under current law.