The Court of Appeal holds that a machine is not an inventor and, two to one, that naming one voids the application

Thaler v Comptroller General of Patents Trade Marks and Designs [2021] EWCA Civ 1374 (21 September 2021) (Arnold LJ and Elisabeth Laing LJ; Birss LJ dissenting), Case No A3/2020/1851, dismissing the appeal from [2020] EWHC 2412 (Pat) on applications GB1816909.4 and GB1818161.0

Stephen Thaler filed two United Kingdom applications, for a food or beverage container and for a light beacon, and in the statements of inventorship required by section 13(2) of the Patents Act 1977 named DABUS, a machine he owns, as inventor and claimed the right to be granted the patents as the machine's owner. The Comptroller's hearing officer held that the statements did not satisfy section 13(2) and that the applications were taken to be withdrawn at the end of the sixteen-month period in rule 10(3), and Marcus Smith J dismissed the first appeal. The Court of Appeal dismissed the second appeal by a majority. Arnold LJ held that an inventor within section 7 must be a person, so DABUS is not an inventor, that there is no rule of law under which intangible property created by a machine belongs to the owner of the machine, so Thaler was not entitled to apply under section 7(2)(b), and that a statement naming a machine does not meet section 13(2), so the applications are taken to be withdrawn. Birss LJ dissented on the section 13(2) point, reasoning at paragraphs 79 and 80 that an applicant who in good faith cannot name a person as inventor can still satisfy the section by saying so on the form, and that the Comptroller is not required to examine whether the applicant's belief is correct.

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