Introduction
On 15 April 2026, Indian Patent Office issued two separate orders in connection with application number 202017019068, filed by Stephen L. Thaler naming DABUS — Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience — as the sole inventor. The subject matter is a food container with a fractal wall profile enabling inter-engagement of stacked containers through interlocking pits and bulges on their surfaces.
The two orders arise from distinct proceedings: a refusal under Section 15 of the Patents Act, 1970, following examination; and a rejection of a pre-grant opposition filed under Section 25(1). Each order addresses a different legal question, and the two must be read together to understand India’s complete position on AI inventorship as it currently stands.
The Section 15 order resolves the substantive question — DABUS cannot be recognised as the true and first inventor under the Patents Act, 1970. The Section 25(1) order resolves a procedural question — that pre-grant opposition is not the correct vehicle for raising inventorship challenges.
The Section 15 Order: The Substantive Determination
During examination, the Patent Office raised objections to DABUS being named as inventor. In the Section 15 refusal order, the office directly applied Sections 6, 7, and 10 of the Patents Act to the facts.
Section 6 permits a patent application to be filed only by a person who is the true and first inventor, an assignee of that inventor, or a legal representative of a deceased inventor. The Patent Office held that this structure necessarily presupposes an inventor capable of holding legal rights, assigning them, and being represented. Sections 7(2), 7(3), and 10(6) additionally require a declaration of inventorship containing particulars such as nationality, address, and signature. The office held that an AI system cannot execute such a declaration, cannot possess legal attributes, and cannot transfer rights to another party.
The applicant’s principal arguments were each rejected. The contention that the Patents Act contains no express bar on non-human inventorship was answered by statutory construction: the surrounding provisions necessarily imply an inventor who is a natural or juristic person. The argument that ownership of DABUS, its source code, or the hardware on which it operated conferred entitlement to the invention was rejected — Section 7(2) requires proof of right derived from a legally valid inventor, and ownership of a machine does not satisfy that requirement. The applicant’s reliance on a PCT Rule 4.17(ii) declaration was also rejected; a declaration under the PCT cannot override the mandatory requirements of Sections 6, 7, and 10 of the Patents Act.
The Patent Office further held that policy recommendations and parliamentary reports calling for legislative reform on AI-generated inventions may be relevant to future law-making, but do not alter the present statutory position. Patent rights are strictly statutory, and inventorship must be recognised only within the framework enacted by Parliament.
The Section 15 order is therefore India’s authoritative answer, under current law, to whether an AI system can be the true and first inventor: it cannot.
The Section 25(1) Order: The Procedural Determination
Separately, a pre-grant opposition was filed by Dr. Kalyan C. Kankanala on 27 October 2022 under two grounds. The Section 25(1)(h) ground alleged that the applicant had furnished false or incomplete information about corresponding foreign applications — specifically, that the South African grant had been obtained without substantive examination of inventorship. This was dismissed: the applicant had submitted timely Form 3 disclosures, including a comprehensive filing dated 23 May 2023 covering all corresponding applications across Australia, the EPO, the UK, the US, Germany, China, Japan, South Korea, Israel, Brazil, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia, and WIPO. The South African grant (application 2021/032 42, 24 June 2021) was disclosed; the Section 8 obligation requires accurate status disclosure, not an account of the examination methodology applied by a foreign office.
The Section 25(1)(f) ground argued that DABUS, being non-human, cannot be a valid inventor, rendering the application non-maintainable. The Controller held that Section 25(1)(f) permits opposition only on the ground that the subject of a claim is not patentable within the meaning of the Act. Questions of inventorship — governed by Sections 2(1)(y), 6, and 7 — concern entitlement to apply and procedural compliance, and not the patentability of the claimed subject matter. No independent ground exists under Section 25(1) to challenge the identity or legal standing of the inventor. The inventorship objection accordingly fell outside the statutory scope of pre-grant opposition.
The opponent’s additional grounds under Sections 3(b) and 3(c) were also rejected. The Section 3(b) public policy argument failed for want of any demonstrated nexus between a fractal food container and public order, morality, or environmental harm. The Section 3(c) ‘mere discovery’ argument failed because the fractal wall profile constitutes a technical product feature, not a discovery of a natural phenomenon or scientific principle.
Critically, the Section 25(1) order does not reopen or contradict the Section 15 findings. It simply establishes that the pre-grant opposition mechanism was not the appropriate procedural channel for raising inventorship. The substantive question had already been resolved in examination.
India in Global Context
India’s Section 15 refusal places it within the mainstream of international patent practice. The EPO rejected both DABUS applications in 2020, with the Board of Appeal in J 8/20 (December 2021) confirming that a designated inventor must be a person with legal capacity under Article 81 EPC. The US Federal Circuit in Thaler v. Vidal, 43 F.4th 1207 (2022), held that inventors must be natural persons under the Patent Act. The UK Supreme Court in Thaler v. Comptroller-General [2023] UKSC 49 unanimously confirmed the same position under the Patents Act 1977. Australia’s Full Court of the Federal Court overturned an earlier first-instance ruling in favour of AI inventorship in April 2022, and special leave to the High Court was refused in November 2022. Germany, Israel, New Zealand, South Korea, and Taiwan have reached comparable conclusions.
South Africa remains the only jurisdiction to have granted a DABUS patent, by virtue of its depository examination system under which only formal requirements are checked — a fact that Thaler disclosed in his Form 3 and that the opponent raised before the Indian Patent Office. India’s refusal rests on a full statutory analysis, materially distinguishing it from the South African position.
One point of structural comparison is worth noting. Section 2(1)(y) of the Indian Patents Act does not expressly state that an inventor must be a natural person — a textual ambiguity the applicant relied upon. The Patent Office resolved this through construction of the surrounding provisions rather than express statutory language, leaving open the theoretical possibility of a different interpretation by higher courts. In contrast, the US, UK, and EPO frameworks were found to be textually clearer in requiring human inventors. Whether the Indian position is revisited judicially or addressed through legislative amendment — as scholars at institutions including NLSIU have advocated — remains to be seen.
Conclusion
The two April 2026 orders together establish the following:
- Under the Patents Act, 1970 as it currently stands, an AI system cannot be named as the true and first inventor; inventorship challenges are properly raised and resolved in examination and refusal proceedings under Sections 6, 7, 10, and 15, not in pre-grant opposition under Section 25(1)(f);
- Section 8 compliance is assessed on the accuracy and timeliness of foreign application status disclosure, not on the substantive content of foreign examination; and
- Sections 3(b) and 3(c) objections require evidence specific to the claimed invention, not policy arguments directed at AI-generated inventions as a class.
The broader question — whether India should amend its patent law to accommodate AI inventorship, or to recognise a sui generis right for AI-generated innovations — is one that the legislature has yet to address. Given India’s growing investment in AI research and development, it is unlikely to remain dormant.