Decisions · Court · United Kingdom
Thaler v. Comptroller-General (DABUS)
UK Supreme Court · 2023-12-20 · Apex court · Current
[2023] UKSC 49
Can AI be an inventor?
Human inventors only
An AI system cannot be an inventor
Why hereCoded at the pole: its core holding or recommendation answers the question outright.
Holding
Under the UK Patents Act 1977 an inventor must be a natural person, so the AI system DABUS could not be named as inventor.
In the UK, a human must be named as inventor. Whether AI-assisted inventions are patentable at all was not decided.
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.