![Federal Court confirms that a patent applicant, owner and inventor must be a natural person: Thaler v Commissioner of Patents [2021] FCA 879](/upload/holman-webb-lawyers/shutterstock680929729-artificial-intelligence-ai-intellectual-property-1.jpg)
Readers may recall Holman Webb’s September 2021 article ‘The Future of Artificial Intelligence - Can AI invent software?’, which reported on a landmark judgement by Justice Beach of the Federal Court in the matter of Thaler v Commissioner of Patents [2021] FCA 879, which determined that under Australian law, artificial intelligence could be listed as the inventor in relation to an application for a patent.
Readers may also recall that the Commissioner of Patents appealed that decision.
That decision has now been overturned by the Full Court of the Federal Court, in a unanimous judgement which brings Australia into line with most other jurisdictions around the world.