On March 2, 2026, the US Supreme Court denied certiorari in Thaler v. Perlmutter (Case No. 25-449), declining to review whether artwork created entirely by artificial intelligence can qualify for copyright protection under US law.
The case involved Dr. Stephen Thaler, who sought copyright registration for visual art his DABUS AI system created without human creative input. The DC Circuit had ruled that copyright law requires a human author. The Supreme Court’s denial leaves that ruling in place, it expressed no view on the underlying question, only that it would not take the case.
The practical line this draws matters. As Morgan Lewis notes, the human authorship requirement that survives this decision applies to fully autonomous AI creation, not to work produced by humans using AI as a tool. Holland and Knight confirms the cert denial on March 2 and identifies the case number precisely.
For companies building on generative AI tools, that distinction is the operative fact. Output from a human who directed, selected, and shaped the AI’s work may still qualify for protection. Output the AI produced on its own does not, and no court will say otherwise until a new case reaches the right posture, or Congress acts.
This week’s denial settles the Thaler challenge. The broader AI copyright debate, active in both the UK and the EU, is nowhere near settled.