Rise of the machines: Federal Court of Australia holds that artificial intelligence can be a patent ‘inventor’
September 21, 2021
It is not often that one reads a decision which raises not only complex and interesting issues of the correct interpretation of Australian patent legislation, but also calls upon the reader to consider existential and philosophical questions regarding the Promethean role of technology in modern society. But that is just what his Honour Justice Beach has done in a recent judgment that a patent applicant can name as the inventor, not a human person, but an artificial intelligence (AI) system.