The top U.S. patent court has confirmed what many were expecting in the patent community—that artificial intelligence (AI) is not considered an “individual” according to the Patent Act and thus AI cannot be named as an inventor on a patent.

The court’s ruling was the latest roadblock encountered by Dr. Stephen Thaler, who filed patent applications in several jurisdictions on a technology developed by the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience (DABUS)—an AI system created by Thaler that mimics the neural network of a human brain. These patent applications were filed as part of the Artificial Inventor Project and were focused on protecting two inventions that were conceived by DABUS without human intervention. As such, Thaler listed DABUS as the sole inventor.