On March 2, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Dr. Stephen Thaler's petition for writ of certiorari, declining to consider whether an artificial intelligence (AI) system may be considered an "author" under U.S. copyright law. By declining review, the Supreme Court left in place a decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which held that copyright protection under U.S. law requires human authorship.
Although the denial does not resolve all questions surrounding AI‑generated content, it does reinforce a foundational principle of U.S. copyright law: works generated autonomously by machines, without meaningful human creative contribution, are not eligible for copyright protection.
Read more about the case's background and the underlying DC Circuit decision here.
Following the DC Circuit's decision affirming the Copyright Office's longstanding interpretation that the Copyright Act requires human authorship, Thaler petitioned the Supreme Court for review. Thaler maintained that the Copyright Office and the courts had improperly imposed a non‑statutory "human authorship" requirement that failed to accommodate technological progress. Thaler further contended that this approach was out of step with foreign copyright regimes, including those in China and the United Kingdom, which recognize certain forms of copyright protection for AI‑generated works.
By contrast, the federal government urged the Court to deny certiorari, arguing that the text and structure of the Copyright Act presuppose a human author and that extending copyright protection to non‑human creators would require legislative action. The government pointed, for example, to provisions tying the term of copyright to the author's life—life plus 70 years—a framework that cannot sensibly be applied to machines, which do not have legally cognizable lifespans.
On March 2, 2026, the Supreme Court denied certiorari without comment.
Takeaways
While a denial of certiorari does not constitute an endorsement of the lower court's reasoning, the practical effect is significant. The Supreme Court's refusal to hear the case solidifies—at least for now—the prevailing interpretation that U.S. copyright law requires human authorship in the first instance.
Courts and the Copyright Office have repeatedly emphasized that copyright protects "the fruits of intellectual labor" that originate in the human mind. In affirming the Copyright Office's decision, the D.C. Circuit relied heavily on the statutory structure of the Copyright Act, noting that concepts such as ownership, duration, inheritance, and intent all presuppose a human author.
The Supreme Court's denial also aligns copyright law with its recent treatment of AI in the patent context. In Thaler v. Vidal, the Federal Circuit held that only natural persons may be named as inventors under the Patent Act, and the Supreme Court similarly declined to review that decision. Together, these outcomes reflect a consistent judicial approach across U.S. intellectual property regimes: AI systems are treated as tools, not rights‑holding creators.
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