In a judgment issued at the end of December, the Tel Aviv District Court addressed this question, which has lingered for several years since GenAI became part of everyday life (Civil Appeal 33353-05-23 Thaler v. Registrar of Patents, 31 December 2025). The court has now provided a clear answer: under current Israeli law, the answer is no. An invention created by an AI system cannot be patented because an AI system cannot be regarded as an “inventor” for patent registration purposes.
How did the story start?
In August 2019, Dr. Stephen Thaler filed two patent applications in Israel. Similar applications were filed in parallel in several other jurisdictions as part of a broader initiative to spark a principled discussion about whether, and under what conditions, intellectual property rights should be granted for inventions generated with the assistance of AI. In the Israeli applications, it was expressly argued that the inventions were created entirely and exclusively by an AI system called DABUS, with no human involvement. Accordingly, the applicant requested that the AI system itself be listed as the “inventor”.
What did the court decide?
The court noted that Israeli patent law does not explicitly define the term “inventor” and does not generally require that the inventor be identified in a patent application. However, in this case, the applicant expressly identified DABUS, an AI system, rather than a human being, as the inventor. This raised the question of whether an AI system can be recorded as an inventor at all.
The court then addressed a practical and fundamental issue: if the applicant did not invent the invention, how did the rights to the invention become vested in the applicant? Under Israeli law, a patent applicant must demonstrate ownership of the invention. Ownership may arise either because the applicant is the inventor or because the rights were lawfully transferred to the applicant, such as by agreement or by operation of law.
When the alleged inventor is an AI system, there is no legal mechanism for transferring ownership. An AI system cannot enter into agreements, assign rights, or be recognized as a legal entity. Consequently, no one can acquire ownership of an invention if the “inventor” is an AI system.
The court concluded that the structure of the Patent Law is based on the inherent assumption that an inventor must be a human being, and that any transfer of rights in an invention can only occur from a human inventor. Since an AI system lacks legal personality, it cannot be considered an inventor and cannot transfer rights. The court further held that there is no alternative solution based on a statutory transfer of rights, as Israeli law contains no provision addressing inventions created by AI systems.
The bottom line is that, under current Israeli law, it is not possible to register a patent for an invention created entirely by an AI system without any human involvement.
What about other jurisdictions?
As noted, Dr. Thaler employed the same strategy in other countries, and in the vast majority of cases, courts, and patent offices reached similar conclusions. In the United States, United Kingdom, European Union, Australia, and Germany, it has been determined, in different ways, that an inventor must be a human being. Similar outcomes have been reached in Japan, Canada, China, South Korea, Taiwan, Switzerland, New Zealand, Brazil, and Saudi Arabia. To date, South Africa remains the only country where a patent application listing an AI system as the inventor has been accepted.
What does this mean for companies and developers?
It is important to understand the scope of the court’s ruling. The decision addresses situations in which an invention is created entirely by AI, without any human involvement. In such cases, patent protection is not available in Israel.
This does not mean that inventions involving the use of AI cannot be protected by patents. Patent registration remains possible when there is human involvement in the inventive process – that is, when a human inventor uses an AI system as a tool or aid in developing the invention. However, a key question remains unresolved, and the Thaler decision does not provide clear guidance: What level of human involvement is required when AI is used as part of the inventive process?
Ultimately, Israeli patent law was drafted to address inventions created by human beings. As such, it is ill-equipped to handle inventions created wholly or partially by AI – a concept that, at the time the law was enacted, belonged firmly in the realm of science fiction. A more comprehensive solution to these issues will likely need to come from the legislature rather than the courts.
