The Application and Impact of Emotional Perception on Patent law: a dissection of UK Supreme Court Decision [2026] UKSC 3

According to the judgment of the UK Supreme Court, at stake in this landmark case were “issues of fundamental importance for the UK’s application of the EPC to computer-implemented claims, particularly in the rapidly expanding field of AI.” According to the Times, the judgment is "seismic," forming the cornerstones of practice for three tenets of patent law, namely: (i) the interpretation of the statutory exclusions to patentability, (ii) the identification of invention, and iii) the objective assessment of inventive step/obviousness. The decision has implications beyond AI and computing, influencing the ability to acquire patent rights in other technologies. Its implications are more than just legal, extending to strategic considerations and touching on the UK’s underlying competitiveness and macro-economic performance. As the case architect, Bruce will examine the decision and then present commentary on how he sees the findings being implemented.

Speaker: Bruce C. Dearling represented Emotional Perception AI and was the instructing patent attorney before all UK court instances. He is a shareholder at Hepworth Browne and  he has over 35-years of private practice and industrial practice experience both in the UK and internationally and is multi-nationally qualified. His previous work has secured leading decisions in litigation in Germany and other European countries, including for trade secret and database theft and cross-border evidence seizures at and before multiple Courts of Appeal and Supreme Court instances.

Disscussant: Prof. Alison Slade, University of Leicester: Alison Slade joined Leicester Law School in September 2017. She is a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Oxford, Research Fellow of the Oxford Intellectual Property Research Centre and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. 

Alison specialises in Intellectual Property Law and her most recent research is examining the nexus between intellectual property rights and licensing.