Supreme Court leaves ai generated art copyright ban in place after Thaler challenge

The latest Supreme Court move cements how ai generated art is treated under existing intellectual property rules in the United States.

Supreme Court declines to intervene on AI authorship

The Supreme Court of the United States has refused to review a closely watched challenge to the U.S. Copyright Office over protections for works created by artificial intelligence. As a result, lower court decisions holding that purely AI-created images lack human authorship, and therefore cannot be copyrighted, remain in force.

The decision, issued on a Monday, came in the longrunning dispute brought by Stephen Thaler, a computer scientist from Missouri. Thaler had asked the high court to overturn a federal appeals court ruling that confirmed AI-generated art cannot receive copyright because it is not authored by a person.

In 2019, the Copyright Office rejected Thaler’s bid to secure protection for an image titled A Recent Entrance to Paradise. He sought registration on behalf of an algorithm he developed, arguing the system should be recognized as the creator. However, the office concluded that copyright law requires a human author.

Human authorship confirmed as a core legal requirement

The Copyright Office revisited Thaler’s application in 2022. After further review, it again held that the image did not contain the necessary element of “human authorship,” and therefore could not be registered. That determination later became central to the broader legal fight over AI-created works.

After Thaler challenged the agency’s stance, U.S. District Court Judge Beryl A. Howell ruled in 2023 that human authorship is “a bedrock requirement of copyright.” Moreover, the judge emphasized that the existing statute presumes an author must be a natural person, not a machine or algorithmic system.

That said, Thaler appealed, taking the dispute to a federal appeals court in Washington, DC. In 2025, the appeals panel upheld Judge Howell’s decision, agreeing that current copyright law does not extend to works created entirely by autonomous AI models without human creative input.

Supreme Court denial and the impact on creators

In October 2025, Thaler petitioned the Supreme Court to hear the case, warning the lower court decisions had created “a chilling effect on anyone else considering using AI creatively.” The justices declined to take up the matter, leaving the appellate ruling and the Copyright Office position intact.

This outcome means that, under present U.S. law, ai generated art that lacks meaningful human authorship will not qualify for copyright. However, human-guided works using AI tools may still be evaluated case by case, an area many legal experts expect to see further disputes and policy debates.

Parallel limits on AI inventorship and patents

The controversy over AI and copyright mirrors similar questions in patent law. The U.S. federal circuit court has also held that AI systems cannot be listed as inventors on patent applications, because they are not natural persons. That interpretation has set a parallel boundary for intellectual property involving machine-created inventions.

In 2024, the U.S. Patent Office issued new guidance reaffirming that only humans can qualify as inventors under existing statutes. Moreover, the office clarified that while AI may assist in the inventive process, the legally recognized inventor must be a person who contributes to the conception of the claimed invention.

The issue is not confined to the United States. The UK Supreme Court reached a similar conclusion, determining that AI systems cannot hold inventorship status under UK patent rules. Together, these decisions signal a coordinated international trend in how courts are drawing lines around machine creativity.

For now, creators, developers and companies working with advanced models must navigate a legal landscape where human input remains the anchor for both copyright and patent protection, even as AI tools become more capable and widely used.