If corporations are “people” (as the Supreme Court has noted in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission) can computers be people?
Crazy idea?
Not really. Both South Africa and Australia have said yes.
But, a U.S. District Court judge in Virginia said no, a computer, actually a computer program that is considered to be “artificially intelligent” cannot be named as an “inventor” under the U.S. Patent Act.
The program, named DABUS (“Device for Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience”), supposed invented a light that flashes in new and different ways.
The owner of DABUS attempted to have the program assign its rights to the invention to him but the assignment was rejected by the US Patent and Trademark Office as DABUS was not a “natural person.”
The judge found that the USPTO was correct in its reading of the law and court precedent, even going so far as to analyze the Torture Victim Protection Act.
So, for now, humans can rest easy that inventor royalties can still flow to them.
(But for how long?)
Source: https://jeffkoeppel.wordpress.com/2021/09/15/computer-programs-are-not-humans/
