Executive Summary
Inventorship of artificial intelligence (AI) disapproved
The Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) recently communicated a request for correction, with respect to an international patent application (PCT application) which had entered the national phase in Korea and in which the name ‘DABUS’ was listed as an inventor, to the effect that it was against the Patent Law to designate an AI, rather than a natural person, as an inventor, and thus the inventor should be corrected to a natural person. In other words, before determining whether the AI itself conceived of the invention, a formality issue of designating an AI as the inventor was first pointed out.
Relevant applications have been examined in Europe and the United States, but in Korea, this application is the first case of patent examination on whether AI can be an inventor.
The applicant claims that he himself has no knowledge related to these inventions and that ‘DABUS,’ which he developed, created two different inventions, including a food container, by itself after learning general knowledge. A food container which is easily combinable with another and which has a wide surface area, resulting in good heat transfer efficiency, and a lamp that emits light which, by mimicking a neural action pattern, is made to be conspicuous are the cores of the inventions.
The Korean Patent Law and relevant precedents recognize only natural persons as inventors, which makes it clear that companies, corporations, devices, etc., which are not natural persons, cannot be designated as inventors. That is, AI, which is a kind of computer program, is not a natural person, and thus it cannot be an inventor. This principle is also the most basic and common concept adopted by all countries including the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany.
Relevant applications had already been examined by the European, US and UK Patent Offices before the patent examination by the KIPO, and all patent offices have consistently decided that only natural persons can be inventors, and thus a patent cannot be granted to AI because it lacks inventorship.
It is as yet the majority opinion at home and abroad that AI is only viewed as a simple tool. But, as technology advances, we may face situations where AI can be regarded as an inventor, and thus discussions in the relevant industry are getting livelier.
In this regard, the KIPO mentioned that they had plans for establishing a legislative advisory committee to collect opinions from industry, academia, and research institutes, as well as actively participating in international discussions through the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the Five IP Offices (IP5) meetings. The key issues surrounding AI inventions are whether AI can be viewed as an inventor and who should be the right holder of an AI invention.