Computer made inventions patentable?

The Federal Patent Court has finally delivered its decision in a fascinating case relating to an invention made by a machine.

The basics of the case surrounding the invention that was made by the  DABUS is simple and well-known around the globe. In order to provoke legal certainty, one of our German colleagues drafted a patent application describing an invention, the gist of the invention having been generated by a computer program: more precisely by a system implementing a neural network for creating inventions (artificial intelligence).
The respective application was first been filed at the EPO (EP3564144). A German patent application (DE102019128120), claiming the priority of this EP application, was also filed.

As was perhaps expected, the German patent application was rejected by the German Patent and Trademark Office since it was clearly indicated at the time of filing that the inventor is not a natural person but a machine, namely the DABUS .

This formal rejection was taken through to appeal and the decision was confirmed by the Federal Patent Court on November 11, 2021. Whilst this is probably not the final decision in this matter, since it is very likely that the decision will be taken to the Federal Court of Justice, there are already a number of findings that can be learned from the appeal proceedings and the decision made by the Federal Patent Court:

• Generally, the Federal Patent Court appears to accept that in future inventions can be made by machines and that such inventions are patentable.  
• Problems arise when it comes to inventorship. The Federal Patent Court is not willing to accept that a machine bears the roll of the inventor.
• Using a natural person, e.g. the programmer or the user of the system as a substitute seems to be acceptable, whereby the specification can clearly state that the mentioned inventor is only a substitute for the true inventor.