AI inventors and status challenges: Australia weighs in on AI inventorship

In Thaler v Commissioner of Patents, handed down on 30 July 2021, Australia’s Federal Court became the first to recognise an artificial intelligence (‘AI’) system as inventor – in contradistinction to UK, European, German and US decisions on the issue. The Commissioner has appealed. This Opinion considers the various decisions and the prospects of the Australian decision being overturned, concluding the likelihood of this result, and, more broadly, why this is the correct way forward.