Bangladesh faces unresolved question over whether AI can be an inventor

Bangladesh’s relatively new patent framework appears to require a legally recognized inventor, but the country has yet to confront a DABUS-style application involving an autonomous AI system.

Bangladesh could become an increasingly interesting jurisdiction in the global debate over AI-generated inventions and patent inventorship, despite the absence of any reported Bangladeshi case in which an artificial intelligence system has been named as an inventor.

The country’s Patent Act, 2023, which came into force on February 27, 2025, does not contain an express provision dealing specifically with AI inventorship. However, its provisions concerning the “true and first inventor,” together with the statutory definition of “person,” point toward a patent system in which inventorship is attributed to a legally recognized person or entity rather than to an AI system.

A comparative legal analysis of Bangladesh’s patent framework has reached the conclusion that there is currently no legal basis for naming AI as an inventor under the Act. However, this remains an interpretation of the legislation rather than the result of a reported decision by a Bangladeshi court or the country’s Department of Patents, Designs and Trademarks (DPDT).

The distinction is important as AI systems increasingly participate in research, engineering, and technological development.

What does Bangladesh’s patent law say?

The Bangladesh Patent Act, 2023 establishes the country’s current patent framework and sets out the requirements for obtaining patent protection, including novelty, inventive step, and industrial applicability.

The legislation does not contain a specific definition of an “AI inventor.” It does, however, repeatedly refer to the “true and first inventor.”

The DPDT’s official patent forms reflect this structure. The Department provides separate forms for applications in which the true and first inventor is the sole or joint applicant and applications in which the true and first inventor is not a party to the application.

The Act also defines “person” broadly, encompassing categories including a natural person, government, company, association, or group. An AI system is not expressly included among those categories.

Could an AI therefore be an inventor?

There has been no reported Bangladesh court or DPDT decision directly answering that question.

Nevertheless, a comparative legal analysis published in the Chinese Journal of Transnational Law concluded that the Bangladesh Patent Act, 2023 does not provide a legal basis for an AI system to be named as an inventor.

The analysis observed that the Act recognizes natural persons, governments, corporations, and associations for patent-related purposes but does not extend that status to artificial intelligence. On that interpretation, an AI system cannot be designated as an inventor under the current legislation.

That conclusion should, however, be distinguished from an authoritative ruling by a Bangladeshi court or patent authority. In other words, Bangladesh has an emerging legal interpretation of the AI-inventorship question, but it has not yet had its own DABUS-style test case.

AI-assisted inventions are a different question

The question of whether AI can be an inventor should not be confused with whether an invention developed with the assistance of AI can receive patent protection. Those are separate issues.

The Bangladesh Patent Act establishes conventional requirements concerning the patentability of inventions. Nothing in the Act appears to create a blanket exclusion based simply on the use of artificial intelligence during the inventive process.

An applicant could therefore use AI as a research, design, or analytical tool while a human inventor remains responsible for the inventive contribution. The more difficult situation arises when an AI system is claimed to have generated an invention autonomously, without a human being making the contribution necessary to qualify as the inventor. That is the issue at the heart of the international DABUS litigation.

The DABUS question

The issue came to international prominence when computer scientist Stephen Thaler sought patent protection for inventions that he said had been generated autonomously by his AI system, DABUS.

Thaler sought to identify DABUS rather than himself as the inventor. Patent authorities and courts in several jurisdictions have rejected that approach.

The European Patent Office, for example, has consistently held that an inventor designated under the European Patent Convention must be a human being. In the original DABUS proceedings, the EPO’s Legal Board of Appeal dismissed Thaler’s appeal after the Receiving Section rejected the designation of DABUS as inventor.

The DABUS proceedings have continued to generate further decisions. In T 0528/25, issued on February 5, 2026, the EPO Technical Board of Appeal again considered the designation of inventor in connection with a DABUS application and dismissed the appeal. The international debate therefore provides an important comparator for Bangladesh.

Bangladesh has yet to face a DABUS-style application

Bangladesh’s position is particularly interesting because its current Patent Act was adopted during a period when the DABUS litigation had already prompted patent offices and courts around the world to consider whether existing legislation could accommodate AI inventors.

Yet there appears to be no reported Bangladeshi decision determining what would happen if an applicant submitted a patent application identifying an AI system as the “true and first inventor.”

The absence of such a decision leaves several practical questions unanswered.

Would the DPDT reject the application because an AI system cannot satisfy the statutory concept of an inventor? Could the applicant amend the application to identify a human inventor? And what would happen where the applicant maintained that no human had made the inventive contribution? The legislation does not provide a specific AI-inventorship procedure for resolving those questions.

The distinction between inventorship and patentability

This distinction could become particularly important as AI systems become increasingly capable of generating technical solutions.

The legal question is not simply whether an AI system can produce something that is new, inventive, and industrially applicable. It is also whether the legal system recognizes the entity that generated that invention as an inventor. Under the Bangladesh framework, the available statutory language points toward a legally recognized person or entity occupying that role. The existing academic analysis accordingly concludes that AI cannot currently be named as the inventor.

That does not necessarily answer whether an invention generated with substantial AI assistance can be patented. A human inventor may still be identifiable where that person has made the legally relevant inventive contribution. The difficult case is one in which the AI system is said to have generated the invention independently.

Why the issue matters

The question has implications beyond Bangladesh.

As generative AI moves from assisting researchers toward performing increasingly sophisticated forms of discovery, design and optimization, patent systems will face difficult questions about how to allocate inventorship. The World Intellectual Property Organization has identified AI’s implications for the innovation ecosystem and patent system as an important policy issue, including questions surrounding inventorship and ownership.

The international response so far has largely favored maintaining a human inventor requirement. The EPO’s DABUS decisions are an important example: the fact that AI can be used in producing an invention does not mean that the AI system itself can be designated as inventor. Bangladesh currently appears to fit within that broader pattern, although its own courts and patent authorities have not yet had the opportunity to provide an authoritative interpretation.

A question waiting to be tested

For now, the safest interpretation of Bangladesh’s Patent Act, 2023 is that an AI system cannot be named as an inventor under the current statutory framework.

That conclusion is supported by the Act’s references to a “true and first inventor,” its treatment of legally recognized persons and entities, the DPDT’s application framework, and published legal analysis. But the absence of a reported Bangladesh decision means an important question remains open in practice.

If an AI system were genuinely responsible for generating an invention without a human making the inventive contribution, who would Bangladesh’s patent system recognize as the inventor? Until a patent application, administrative decision, or court case puts that question directly before the Bangladeshi authorities, the country remains without a definitive judicial answer.

What is clear is that the issue is no longer theoretical. As AI-generated inventions become more sophisticated, Bangladesh’s relatively new patent regime may eventually have to decide whether its existing concept of the “true and first inventor” is capable of accommodating inventions created by machines.

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