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AI-generated inventions, DABUS, German Federal Court of Justice, inventor's rights, patentability, sufficient contribution to the invention
Abstract:
This analysis shows that the Federal Court of Justice's decision in the DABUS case provides for a surface-level approach to the much-debated issues of who should merit the inventor title for inventions developed through artificial intelligence (AI) applications. While the Court accepted the additional information about the invention's genesis on the inventor designation form as being in conformity with the existing (procedural) law, it disregarded the substance of this information, which prima facie raises doubts as to whether the designated natural person is indeed the inventor, particularly given the highly contentious circumstances of Thaler's case. Although the Court upheld the merit-based notion of inventorship and the sufficient contribution requirement, its formalistic treatment of the inventor designation such that 'any human would do' risks reducing the inventor designation to a legal fiction, allowing trivial human involvement to qualify as inventorship, especially in cases where unjustifiable claims are unlikely to be contested.
The decision can be seen as encouraging innovators to apply AI in technical problem-solving, leading to potentially patentable inventions, as it ensures that the contribution of AI to finding a technical teachingregardless of how substantial it might bewould not preclude granting a patent to a natural person. This suggests that the Court prioritised the potential patentability of AI-assisted inventions over the merit-based justification for inventorship. Overall, it is argued that, while the DABUS case does not demonstrate a need for radical changes to substantive patent law, it underscores the question of whether factual and legal accuracy in designating the inventor should be ensured at the patent application stage, and how this should be achieved.
