The U.S. Supreme Court just declined to take up Stephen Thaler's lawsuit over whether AI-generated art can be copyrighted, leaving lower court rulings and the Copyright Office's human-authorship requirement intact. Thaler sought copyright in 2018 for artwork generated by his DABUS system. While this keeps the 'humans only' rule on the books, questions around AI-assisted human works remain open.
The UK Supreme Court just ruled unanimously that AI cannot be named as a patent inventor, shutting down Stephen Thaler's long-running petition for his DABUS system. Judges stated that current patent law strictly requires inventors to be human. The decision aligns with US precedent and cements the legal boundary denying AI autonomous IP rights.
Patent offices worldwide just shut down attempts to list an AI system called DABUS as an independent inventor. A technical breakdown shows the system still relied completely on humans to frame problems, guide concept pruning, and interpret cryptic outputs. Basically, AI remains a capable assistant—true machine autonomy in invention is nowhere close.
