DABUS at the Boards of Appeal of the EPO: A Case Note

This case note by Mohammad Ataul Karim examines the recent decision of the Boards of Appeal of the European Patent Office in the DABUS inventorship dispute. The paper analyses the Board’s reasoning in rejecting Dr Stephen Thaler’s attempts to designate himself as the inventor of an AI-generated invention and highlights the EPO’s emphasis on clear, consistent, and unambiguous inventorship statements. It concludes that, under current European patent law, AI systems cannot be recognised as inventors and that legal certainty in inventor designation remains paramount.

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Introduction

On 27 March 2026, the Boards of Appeal of the European Patent Office (EPO) issued a decision (T0528/25) concerning the DABUS case (AI inventorship). This decision stems from the applicant's appeal before the EPO against the Examination Division's rejection of European patent application 21216024 (publication number: EP 4 067 251 A1), filed as a divisional application (EP 18 275 163.6). The applicant, Dr Stephen L. Thaler, had identified an artificial intelligence (AI) system named ‘DABUS’ as an autonomously generating patentable invention. The EPO's receiving section rejected the application because designating an AI system as an inventor does not meet the legal requirements of the European patent law. The subsequent appeal was also dismissed by the Legal Boards of Appeal. The applicant then filed this request before the Boards of Appeal. This note outlines a brief summary of the Boards of Appeal decision.