EPO accepts Cat as Inventor

Author Rbreidbrown Licence CC BY-SA 4.0

Jane Lambert

Less than two months after its decisions in the DABUS cases which I blogged in Artificial Intelligence - The DABUS Decisions 19 Feb 2020 NIPC Law, the Receiving Section of the European Patent Office has published a press release announcing that it has accepted a patent application for an improved method of rodent presentation.

The invention was developed at the Institiut National des Ḗtudes Rongeuses at Zimmerbach in Alsace.  The specification states that cats have a predilection for delivering mice and other small mammals to their keepers (possibly as a gesture of affection) but conventional methods of delivery, namely in the feline's jaws present quality control challenges for the recipients.  Sometimes the specimen is still alive which causes recipients of a nervous disposition to scream and climb on furniture as soon as it is released.  Alternatively, the specimen may be in an advanced state of decomposition occasioning in extreme cases vomiting, especially after the consumption of ginger beer.

The solution is a box or receptacle which Professor Jérome Philippe, Chef de l'Instiut, describes as "une boite pour les souris mortes".  Constructed by a 3D printer from designs created with the assistance of a machine learning program, the receptacle contains and constrains a living specimen but conceals from view a dead one.  An advantage of the receptacle is that it is small enough to be carried in the mouth of a feline.  Said cat catches or collects a specimen and deposits it through a shoot which actuates a door on said receptacle to snap shut as soon as said animal is deposited therein.

The box, shoot and door shutting mechanism are of course known.  It is understood that the prior art includes GB1426698A. The inventive step lies in the method of selection of specimens which was devised by Minouche, Professor Philippe's pet cat.  For that reason, Minouche is named as the inventor.  Further details of the invention are spelt out in the specification and claims.

Asked how the EPO could accept an animal as an inventor but not DABUS, the EPO spokesman, Dr Norbert Schmetterlingsgehirn explained that there is nothing in the European Patent Convention or the Implementing Regulations to prevent an animal which unlike DABUS is a living thing from being named as an inventor in boxes 22 and 23 of Form 1001. 

President Campinos was unavailable for comment but Tim Moss, the Comptroller-General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks, could see no problem.  "We have already had an application for a patent from Ginger, a cat belonging to one of our former employees" (see Dan Anthony Patent Pedrick: The story of Arthur and Ginger  20 Nov 2017).  No comment on the story form Merkel when I last checked their blog but Dr Schmetterlingsgehirn has suggested that my readers might like to watch the EPO's webinar on Applications Naming Machine as Inventor if they have not noticed the date on the calendar.

This is one day on which I am not encouraging feedback.  There is no way anyone can get in contact with me before 12:00 because we are all social distancing in chambers. Nobody is picking up emails or answering phones.  Wishing everybody as nice a day as possible under present constraints.