EPO accepts Cat as Inventor
Author Rbreidbrown Licence CC BY-SA 4.0 Jane Lambert Less than two months after its decisions in the DABUS cases which I blogged in Artificial Intelligence - The DABUS Decisions 19 Feb 2020 NIPC Law, the Receiving Section of the European Patent Office has published a press release announcing that it has accepted a patent application for an improved method of rodent presentation. The invention was developed at the Institiut National des Ḗtudes Rongeuses at Zimmerbach in Alsace. The specification states that cats have a predilection for delivering mice and other small mammals to their keepers (possibly as a gesture of affection) but conventional methods of delivery, namely in the feline's jaws present quality control challenges for the recipients. Sometimes the specimen is still alive which causes recipients of a nervous disposition to scream and climb on furniture as soon as it is released. Alternatively, the specimen m...