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A US computer scientist was defeated on Wednesday in his attempt to register patents on inventions created by his artificial intelligence system in a landmark case in the UK over the possibility of AI having patent rights.

Stephen Thaler wanted to receive two UK patents for inventions he says were created by his “creativity machine” called DABUS.

His attempt to register patents was refused by the UK Intellectual Property Office, on the grounds that the inventor must be a human being or a company, and not a machine.

Thaler appealed to the UK Supreme Court, which on Wednesday unanimously rejected his appeal because, under UK patent law, “an inventor must be a natural person”.

“This appeal does not address the broader question of whether technical advances generated by machines that act autonomously and powered by AI should be patentable,” Justice David Kitchin said in the court’s written ruling.

“Nor is it the question of whether the meaning of the term ‘inventor’ should be broadened (…) to include AI-powered machines that generate new and non-obvious products and processes that can offer benefits over already known products and processes “.

Thaler’s lawyers said in a statement that “the judgment establishes that UK patent law is currently woefully inadequate to protect inventions generated autonomously by AI machines.”

This year, Thaler lost a similar dispute in the United States, where the country’s Supreme Court refused to hear a challenge to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s refusal to issue patents for inventions created by its AI system.