A.Sinha & Associates, Advocates

    The UK Supreme Court has held that for the purposes of the UK Patents Act, 1977 patent rights can be conferred only to a “natural person” and not to any machine as in the present case which is claimed to be the inventor by the name of “DABUS” acting autonomously and powered by Artificial Intelligence.    Case :  Thaler (Appellant)  - vs -  Comptroller-General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks (Respondent)   Coram :  Lord Hodge Lord Kitchin Lord Hamblen Lord Leggatt Lord Richards   Brief Facts :   Dr Stephen Thaler filed two applications in October and November of 2018 (“The Applications”) to grant patents for what he claimed were inventions for “new and useful devices and methods”. The applications were filed under the 1977 Act (“The Patents Act”) and the grant forms (“The Grant Forms”) were attached to them. Dr Thaler stated that he was not an inventor and that he was the owner of a machine named DABUS (“DABUS”) which acted a...

The Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) notified the Guidelines for Prevention and Regulation of Dark Patterns, 2023 on 30.11.2023 which aims to curb misleading practices that trick users into making choices they originally did not intend to make. The guidelines prohibit all platforms offering goods or services in India, advertisers, sellers to engage in any kind of dark pattern practice.   “ Dark Patterns ” have been broadly defined by the CCPA in the said guidelines as any practices or deceptive design patterns using user interface or user experience interactions on any platform; designed to mislead or trick users to do something they originally did not intend or want to do; by subverting or impairing the consumer autonomy, decision making or choice; amounting to misleading advertisement or unfair trade practice or violation of consumer rights. The following practices have been specified in the said guidelines to provide guidance and better understanding of the guidelin...