The Supreme Court has just turbocharged AI innovation in the UK

A decision by The Supreme Court, England’s highest court, could significantly boost investor confidence in AI ventures in the UK, making AI companies and startups more attractive, because it provides greater Intellectual Property protection for those investing in AI technologies.

The judgment (11 February 2026) in the case of Emotional Perception AI Limited v Comptroller General of Patents (Case ID UKSC/2024/0131) will liberate AI development because it makes clear the scope of patentable AI inventions.

For almost 50 years, UK Intellectual Property law in the form of the Patent Act 1977 has essentially excluded software as being capable of securing a Patent – a valuable form of registered intellectual property right.

A patent gives an inventor the right for a limited period to stop others from making, using or selling an invention without the permission of the inventor. In return for the disclosure of his invention the inventor is given a short-term monopoly in the use of it for a period of 20 years. The basic purpose of the patent system is to encourage innovation and the improvement of industrial techniques. Patents usually cover products or processes that possess or contain new functional or technical aspects. For an invention to be patentable, it must be new, (Novel), involve an ‘inventive step’, and be capable of industrial application.

Patents are concerned with how things work, what they do, how they do it, what they are made of or how they are made.

Section 1(2) Patents Act includes in a non-exhaustive list of things that are not treated as inventions, a ‘a program for a computer’.

The issue before The Supreme Court was whether this restriction on patenting for a computer, applies to artificial neural networks – which are the backbone of the machine learning systems on which modern artificial intelligence systems are based.

The facts of the case were:

Emotional Perception AI Limited developed an artificial neural network which can recommend media files, such as music, and is able to produce another file with can evoke a similar emotional response in the user based on the file’s physical properties, rather than relying on categories identified by humans, even irrespective of genre or personal taste.

The company applied to the UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) to patent this ANN., The UKIPO rejected the application, on the basis that the artificial neural network fell within The Patent Act definition of a “program for a computer’’ The Case was appealed through the High Court ultimately to The Supreme Court.

The judgment of The Supreme Court is that a computer program can be patented if it involves the use of physical hardware – and as an artificial neural network can only be used on hardware it could in principle be patented.

It appears from the Judgment that The Supreme Court accepted the argument that an artificial neural network is not in itself a program for a computer. Whilst an artificial neural network may be implemented in hardware or emulated in software, it lies at a higher level of generality comprising a self-obtained structure, but which is not implementing code provided to it by a human.

The claim for a Patent did not, therefore claim a program for a computer.

In conclusion:

The government has an ambition, set out in the National AI Strategy. That Strategy seeks to aid what may be billions of pounds in economic, societal and technological benefits, by recognising the power of AI to increase resilience, productivity, growth and innovation across the public and private sector.

UK Patent law, can now therefore foster rather than impede, AI innovation.

It is an extremely important decision for the furtherance of the UK’s AI goals.