Decisions · Court · United States
Thaler v. Perlmutter (certiorari denied)
U.S. Supreme Court · 2026-03-02 · Apex court · Current
No. 25-449 (cert. denied)
Can AI-generated work be protected?
No position
Supreme Court declined to review; human authorship rule stands
Why hereNot placed: a denial of certiorari decides nothing on the merits. The D.C. Circuit's judgment remains the leading US authority.
Holding
The Supreme Court declined to hear Stephen Thaler's petition, leaving in place the D.C. Circuit's ruling that a work generated autonomously by AI cannot be registered.
The US human-authorship requirement is settled for now. Only Congress could change it.
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
Changes
- 2026-10-20No longer treated as a position or as settling the law, since a denial of certiorari is not a ruling on the merits.