Japan Intellectual Property High Court Dismisses U.S. Engineer’s Patent Claim That DABUS is Inventor

The Yomiuri Shimbun

16:04 JST, January 31, 2025

The Intellectual Property High Court on Thursday upheld the Tokyo District Court’s decision to dismiss a claim by a U.S. engineer that the Japan Patent Office should rescind their rejection of his patent application, which listed the artificial intelligence he created as the inventor.

Presiding Judge Hibiki Shimizu dismissed the appeal and said in the ruling, “Inventors are limited to natural persons.”

According to the ruling, the engineer applied for a patent for a food container and other items and listed the inventor as “DABUS, the artificial intelligence that autonomously invented this invention.” DABUS stands for Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience. However, the Japan Patent Office rejected the application.

The plaintiff argued in the lawsuit that it is possible to apply for a patent even if the invention is made by an AI system. In response, the high court ruled that under the Patent Law, “the right to obtain a patent” only arises when the inventor is a human being, and that AI inventions cannot be deemed to have the right to obtain a patent.

The high court stated that “the system design of patent rights should be discussed from the perspective of national industrial policy” and that it is necessary to discuss legislation based on the impact of AI inventions on society. It also stated that “it is difficult to deal with this issue through interpreting current laws.”

“This is an important legal and social issue that could also affect the direction of technological innovation,” the attorney representing the plaintiff said after the ruling. “We’d like to appeal to the Supreme Court.”

The Japan Patent Office said it agreed with the ruling.