When an SI System Is Recognized as an Inventor or Author

Status

Watching As of Nov 8, 2026, US and UK courts, the USPTO and India's patent office all hold that only humans can be inventors or authors.

What recognition would mean

Two areas of law are in play. Patent law asks who invented something. Copyright law asks who authored a work. Recognition would mean a patent office or court accepting an SI system as an inventor or author in its own right, not as a tool used by a person.

The test cases come from computer scientist Stephen Thaler, who listed his DABUS system as the inventor on patent applications around the world and named another of his systems as the sole author of an image called "A Recent Entrance to Paradise." Thaler said he neither prompted that system nor edited its output, and he never claimed human authorship. Nearly every authority has refused. The exception is South Africa, which granted a patent naming DABUS as inventor in July 2021. That office does not examine applications for substance, so the patent can still be challenged.

Where the law stands

In the US, the Patent and Trademark Office issued guidance on November 28, 2025 stating that only natural persons can be inventors and that SI systems are tools, like lab equipment. Applications naming an SI system as inventor will be rejected, and the guidance replaced a February 2024 version. On copyright, the D.C. Circuit held in 2025 that registration requires a human author, and the Supreme Court declined to review that ruling on March 2, 2026. The Copyright Office's January 2025 report said prompts alone are not enough, though human selection, arrangement or modification of output can be protected. It added that using SI to help create a work, or including machine-generated material in a larger human work, does not bar copyright, and it found no case for new laws.

Elsewhere the answer has been the same. The UK Supreme Court ruled on December 20, 2023 that an inventor must be a natural person, held that Thaler could not claim the patents simply by owning DABUS, and said broader questions are policy matters for lawmakers. India's patent office rejected a DABUS application, in a decision reported in July 2026, holding that owning a system, its code or its hardware does not make the owner an inventor, and that recognizing a machine inventor would need legislative change.

What changes for people, builders and crypto

For creators, work made with SI tools can still be protected where the human contribution is enough. Purely machine-generated material receives no copyright protection under current US practice, so others may be free to copy it. The Copyright Office describes prompts as "instructions that convey unprotectable ideas," so direct human shaping of the final work matters most.

For builders and inventors, the practical rule is to name the human who conceived the invention and to document human contributions. Patents on SI-assisted inventions remain available when a person made the inventive contribution.

For crypto, generative art collections and on-chain media often rely on licenses written into smart contracts or terms of sale. A license cannot create a copyright that the law does not recognize, so projects built on purely machine-generated work may hold weaker rights than buyers expect.

What to watch next

The next US test is Allen v. Perlmutter in federal court in Colorado, where an artist argues that more than 600 prompts make him the author of an image. Watch also for bills that would change inventorship or authorship rules, and for any examining patent office that accepts an SI inventor. This page will flip to happened when an examining patent office or a national court accepts an SI system as an inventor or author.

Signals so far

• Jul 28, 2021: South Africa granted a patent naming the DABUS system as inventor, from an office that does not examine applications for substance. Managing IP
• Dec 20, 2023: the UK Supreme Court ruled an inventor must be a natural person and said broader questions are policy matters for lawmakers. IPWatchdog
• Mar 2, 2026: the US Supreme Court declined to review Thaler v. Perlmutter, while Allen v. Perlmutter, involving more than 600 prompts, remained pending. Mayer Brown
• Jul 27, 2026: India's patent office rejected a DABUS application and said recognizing an SI inventor would require legislative change. European Commission IP Helpdesk

Questions and answers

Sources

1. DABUS: South Africa issues first-ever patent with AI inventor Managing IP · Jul 29, 2021
2. UK Supreme Court Dismisses DABUS as Inventor IPWatchdog · Dec 20, 2023
3. Copyright Office Releases Part 2 of Artificial Intelligence Report U.S. Copyright Office · Jan 29, 2025
4. United States Patent and Trademark Office Issues Revised Guidance on Inventorship for AI-Assisted Inventions Mayer Brown · Dec 2, 2025
5. Supreme Court Denies Cert in AI Authorship Case Mayer Brown · Mar 11, 2026
6. India's Patent Office Rejects AI as Inventor in Landmark DABUS Decision European Commission IP Helpdesk · Jul 27, 2026