News

I would like to send you some information about the latest developments in one of the hot topics in intellectual property in the Japanese context, specifically AI inventorship. As you may well be aware, there have been a number of patent applications made in various jurisdictions which list an AI system called DABUS as the inventor, which has led to decisions by patent offices and courts on the matter.

In Japan, such a patent application was filed at the JPO in 2020. The AI inventor was flagged in the JPO’s formality check and the patent application was dismissed by the JPO. The applicant went on to appeal against the JPO’s dismissal to the Tokyo District court last year, and the decision in this case just came out last Thursday, May 16, 2024. The claim was dismissed and it was affirmed that the inventors listed in patent applications in Japan must be natural persons.

This decision is consonant with last month report from a JPO-commissioned research study on the matter that concluded that there was no need to immediately amend Japanese patent law in response to developments in artificial intelligence technology, and that only natural people should be recognized as inventors in patents applications.

I hope that you find this information informative. Should you have any questions on the matter, please don’t hesitate to ask me about it.

Yasunori Ohtsuka, Managing Partner