AI and Patent Inventorship: The DABUS Cases Quiz

Answers and explanations appear as you take the quiz.

1. Which two inventions did Stephen Thaler say DABUS created on its own?
   • A self-driving delivery robot and a battery cooling system
   • A food container with a fractal surface and a flashing emergency light
   • A cancer drug molecule and a protein-folding method
   • A solar panel coating and a water filtration membrane
2. What did the US Federal Circuit decide in Thaler v. Vidal (2022)?
   • AI-assisted inventions can never be patented
   • Thaler should be named inventor in place of DABUS
   • The word "individuals" in the Patent Act means natural persons
   • The USPTO must create a new category for AI inventors
3. What did the UK Supreme Court rule in December 2023?
   • An inventor under the Patents Act 1977 must be a natural person
   • DABUS could be named inventor if Thaler co-signed
   • UK patents may name AI as inventor for software inventions
   • The case should be sent to the European Patent Office
4. Why does South Africa's 2021 DABUS patent carry little legal weight?
   • It was revoked within a week
   • It named Thaler rather than DABUS
   • It covered only design rights, not inventions
   • South Africa does not substantively examine patent applications
5. How did the DABUS litigation go in Australia?
   • The High Court ruled that AI can be an inventor
   • Australia never received a DABUS application
   • A single judge accepted DABUS in 2021, and the Full Federal Court reversed that in 2022
   • The patent office granted the patent without any court case
6. Which statement about AI-assisted inventions is accurate according to this guide?
   • Any use of AI in research makes an invention unpatentable
   • They can be patented when a human makes a significant contribution to the invention
   • They can be patented only in South Africa
   • They must name the AI as a co-inventor alongside humans
7. Under the USPTO's February 2024 guidance, which activity could count as a significant human contribution?
   • Owning the AI system that produced the invention
   • Supervising the computer the AI runs on
   • Presenting a general problem to the AI
   • Writing a prompt designed to produce a specific solution
8. Why should teams keep dated records of prompts, outputs and human decisions?
   • Errors in naming inventors can make a patent invalid or unenforceable
   • The law requires AI outputs to be published before filing
   • Records let the AI be named as inventor later
   • Patent offices charge lower fees when records are attached