S.Korea rejects patent claims for AI-invented products

South Korea’s intellectual property office has rejected patent applications that claimed an artificial intelligence system as their inventor, in its first decision over whether AI would be regarded as an inventor.

The Korean Intellectual Property Office said on Tuesday that the applications were incomplete since they failed to list a human being as an inventor, as stipulated by the patent laws.

It stated that AI technologies have yet to advance to the levels enough to invent a new subject without human intervention.

The patent applications were filed in March 2020 by Stephen Thaler, an American developer, who created an AI system called DABUS. DABUS stands for the Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience.

Thaler claimed that after machine learning, DABUS had developed a new type of a food container with an increased surface area, which facilitates heat transfers and grips.

His second patent application is related to a flashing light device designed to attract attention during an emergency incident, which he also claimed was invented by DABUS.

He reportedly said that DABUS is the world’s first AI to invent products without human intervention

Rejecting the patent applications, the Korean intellectual property office requested Thaler to modify them by listing a natural person as their inventor in February of this year.

But Thaler has not responded to the request.

Under the South Korean patent laws, an inventor is defined only as a human being as in the case in many other countries, including the US, the UK and Germany.

The Tuesday decision comes after a US federal appeals court in August turned down the two same patent applications filed in 2019.

Thaler had sought to obtain patents to list DAUBS as an inventor in 16 countries, including the UK, the European Union, Australia and Germany. But all the countries had declined to accept his applications on the ground that they do not list a human inventor.

Write to Jin-Won Park at jin1@hankyung.com
Yeonhee Kim edited this article