DABUS (Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience) is an artificial intelligence system created by the American scientist Stephen Thaler and developed by his company Imagination Engines Inc. It is designed to autonomously generate new concepts and ideas from accumulated experience.
Technical architecture
DABUS is a connectionist system: it consists of vast swarms of neural networks that join into chains encoding concepts gleaned from their environment. Stimulating these chains with noise produces new, derivative concepts (idea formation), while anomaly-filtering networks isolate the ideas that are novel and useful. The approach is described in US Patent No. 10,423,875, “Electro-optical device and method for identifying and inducing topological states formed among interconnecting neural modules.”
Claimed inventions
Two inventions were attributed to the system: a food container built with fractal geometry enabling faster reheating, and a flashing warning beacon for attracting attention in emergencies. These became the subject of patent applications worldwide.
Patent cases
Thaler named DABUS as the inventor in numerous jurisdictions, triggering landmark disputes over whether AI can be an inventor. In July 2021, South Africa (CIPC) became the first to grant a patent naming AI as the inventor. In Australia, the Federal Court allowed AI as an inventor in July 2021, but the Full Court of the Federal Court overturned that decision on 13 April 2022.
Most offices rejected the applications: the European Patent Office dismissed the appeal on 21 December 2021, holding that an inventor must be a person with legal capacity. In the US, the USPTO refused registration and the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed on 5 August 2022 that only a natural person can be an inventor. The UK Supreme Court dismissed Thaler's appeal on 20 December 2023. New Zealand deemed the application void (January 2022), and the Swiss Federal Administrative Court ruled on 26 June 2025 that AI cannot be listed as an inventor.
