CAN A MACHINE INVENT? THE INDIAN PATENT OFFICE'S DABUS REFUSAL AND THE FUTURE OF AI INVENTORSHIP

This blog examines the Indian Patent Office’s April 2026 refusal of Dr. Stephen Thaler’s patent application naming the artificial intelligence system DABUS as the sole inventor under Application No. 202017019068. It analyzes the Controller’s statutory interpretation of Sections 2(1)(y), 6, 7, and 10 of the Patents Act, 1970, which restrict inventorship strictly to natural or juristic persons and reject the premise that machine ownership establishes a “proof of right” to file. Situating the Indian ruling against the global trajectory across the European Patent Office, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and South Africa, the article explores the procedural dynamics of pre-grant opposition under Section 25(1) and argues that while the decision confirms India’s alignment with international consensus against autonomous AI inventorship, it leaves unresolved the critical threshold question of how patent law must treat inventions where artificial intelligence performs the substantive bulk of the inventive process.