On March 2, 2026, the Supreme Court denied certiorari filed by Dr. Stephen Thaler, who sought review of the U.S. Copyright Office's denial of copyright protection to various works created by Thaler's “DABUS” artificial intelligence.
The key question presented in the petition was “[w]hether works outputted by an AI system without a direct, traditional authorial contribution by a natural person can be copyrighted.” The petition came after a judgment by the D.C. Circuit which affirmed (from the District Court of D.C.) the Copyright Office's refusal to register a copyright in a work generated by the DABUS model, on the basis that it “lack[ed] the human authorship necessary to support a copyright claim.”
With this denial, both the Copyright Office's position and the D.C. Circuit's affirmance that an artificial intelligence cannot be an author for the purpose of copyright protection will remain in place. This is consistent with similar decisions with respect to patent protection: namely, that artificial intelligence cannot be an inventor for the purpose of receiving patent protection.
With the Supreme Court's denial of the petition, Dr. Thaler's copyright application will remain denied, with no further avenues of appeal.
Obtaining an answer now to this question presented is of paramount importance. If the Court denies certiorari, even if it later overturns the Copyright Office’s test in another case, it will be too late. The Copyright Office will have irreversibly and negatively impacted AI development and use in the creative industry during critically important years.
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