Decisions · Office · European Patent Organisation
DABUS (J 8/20)
European Patent Office, Legal Board of Appeal · 2021-12-21 · Office decision · Current
J 8/20 and J 9/20
Can AI be an inventor?
Human inventors only
The inventor must be a natural person
Why hereCoded at the pole: its core holding or recommendation answers the question outright.
Holding
The EPO's Legal Board of Appeal confirmed that a patent application must name a human inventor; DABUS could not be designated.
For European patents, name the human who contributed. The AI's role does not make an invention unpatentable by itself.
Principles it bears on
Sources
This record
Data as of 2026-10-21.
Drafted with AI assistance and checked against the sources linked above; not yet reviewed by a lawyer. Methodology
No changes logged yet. The change log started on 2026-10-20.