India’s Patent Office Rejects AI as Inventor in Landmark DABUS Decision

The Indian Patent Office has rejected a patent application naming DABUS (Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience) as the sole inventor, in what is described as India’s first substantive determination on whether an AI system can be recognized as an inventor under the Patents Act, 1970. 

The Controller held that the current legal framework requires an inventor to be a natural or legally recognized person capable of holding and transferring rights, meaning ownership of the AI system, its source code or hardware does not establish inventorship. 

The application was also rejected on the separate ground that the claimed food-container invention lacked an inventive step, as it was considered obvious in light of prior art and common general knowledge. The decision therefore establishes that, under current Indian patent law, AI-generated inventions may be pursued only where a human inventor is identified, while recognizing AI as an inventor would require legislative change.