Carlo CocuzziAI Expert, Pod Cast Host, Real Estate Investor and Funding Specialist

Who Owns AI's Ideas? | MOONSHOTS

20 Jul 2026 · 2 min

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In this brief two‑speaker discussion, Speaker A explains the Japanese Supreme Court’s decision that an AI cannot be listed as an inventor on a patent application, using the Stefan Thaler case involving AI‑generated food‑container technology as an example. The court upheld existing Japanese patent law, which requires inventors to be natural persons, and warned that any protection for AI‑generated inventions will require a new legal framework. Speaker B shifts to a geopolitical angle, suggesting that Argentina, under President Javier Milei, could position itself to allow non‑human AI entities to own IP, turning Japan’s ruling into a market opening. He notes the Japanese decision does not permanently preclude AI inventors, leaving room for future statutory change or partial AI personhood, and frames the ruling as a precedent that could be overturned when legal reforms occur.

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The question on this article is who owns the end product here? Is it the human or is it the AI? Japan's Supreme Court has ruled that AI cannot be listed as an inventor on a patent application. The case is based on a patent filing by US engineer Stefan Thaler, who claimed an AI is the inventor of technology related to food containers and other products. Japan's patent office rejected the application and asked for a human inventor. Thaler refused. Japan's Supreme Court upheld the view that inventors under current Japanese patent law must be natural persons. The court's message is important. Judges are not going to rewrite the patent system on the fly. If society wants AI-generated inventors to receive protection, then you need to create a new framework.
President Javier Milei, if you're listening to this podcast and you want Argentina to take a globally preeminent position from the perspective of non-human AI corporations being able to create their own IP and their own patents, I think Japan just opened up but a new market opportunity for Argentina. Probably also worth noting that Japan's Supreme Court didn't indefinitely rule out the possibility of AI inventors on patents. They were merely saying that the existing statutes don't contemplate non-natural persons. However, this is obviously the sort of precedent that if and when some form of AI personhood is ultimately recognized, even if it's a partial, economic or some sort of social personhood. I think this is the sort of precedent that's just waiting to be overturned.