The Supreme Court has given a ruling on whether an AI device can qualify for patent protection.
In the Emotional Perception (EP) case[1], the court had to deal with the thorny issue of whether an AI device was excluded from patent protection for being “a computer program as such” or could proceed to further stages as a computer program which had a “technical effect”.
The background was that EP applied for a patent for its artificial neural network (ANN) system. Essentially the ANN claimed to replicate the similarities and differences between files of information (such as music tracks, videos or texts) as perceived by a human being, enabling it to make recommendations of similar works to those originally selected by the human and to use machine learning to improve performance over time.
Although recommendation services are already available, EP claimed that the ANN could make quicker, simpler and better recommendations using a system of artificial neurons arranged in layers.
In the courts below, the decision had gone from one way to the other with the Court of Appeal rejecting EP’s case for patentability.
The Supreme overturned that decision in part, finding that the ANN was a computer program, which when combined with hardware, had the necessary “technical effect” to make it patentable.
Unfortunately, for EP, this is not the end of the line, because the decision just decided that the ANN was a patentable invention. The case will be remitted to the Patent Office for decisions to be made on the important issues of novelty, inventive step and industrial application.
[1] Emotional Perception AI Limited -v- Comptroller General of Patents, Designs and Trademarks 2026 UKSC 3