San Francisco: A United States district judge has upheld an earlier ruling from the US Patent and Trademark Office that artificial intelligence (AI) generated artworks are not eligible for copyright.
Judge Beryl Howell said that the copyright law has never stretched so far to protect works generated by new forms of technology operating absent any guiding human hand.
The ruling came in an order rejecting computer scientist Stephen Thaler's bid challenging the government's position refusing to register works made by AI.
The US Copyright Office had earlier refused copyright to Thaler for an AI-generated image he had created using the Creativity Machine algorithm. Thaler later sued the US Copyright Office, claiming its denial was "arbitrary, capricious, and not in accordance with the law."
However, Judge Howell ruled that "human authorship is a bedrock requirement of copyright."
Thaler now plans to appeal the case, according to latest reports.
In April this year, the US Supreme Court also declined to hear a challenge by Thaler to the US Patent and Trademark Office's refusal to issue patents for the work his AI system created.
With inputs from IANS