UK Supreme Court , 11 February 2026 : Artifical Neural Networks are “programs for computers”

Patentability of “programs for computer” under (Article 52(2)(c) EPC)  

Artifical Neural Networks (ANN) are “programs for computers”   

There is no reason to confine the term “computer” to conventional digital computers .

It is unreasonable to interpret the EPC in a way that ties its application to a particular technology which happens currently to be prevalent.  

The description of a “program” must be broadened to include a set of instructions capable of being followed by a computer 

(of any kind) - which may or may not have a CPU - to produce desired manipulations of data.  

Software and hardware implementations  are the same in terms of the architecture, weights ., and the outputs produced, this is an untenable distinction. 

It is not relevant that an ANN can be implemented using various different types of physical machines which is “a mere implementation choice”.

What matters is the arrangement of artificial neurons, each characterised by its links to other neurons in the network, weights, bias and activation function.   

The machine on which an ANN is implemented is a computer. 

What characterises a computer as a physical machine is its functionality, not the specific technology used to achieve that functionality.  

The ANN - irrespective of whether any of its features are adjustable - represents a set of instructions to the machine to perform operations. 

The ANN as a whole is a computer program.

That is so even in the extreme case of a trained ANN in which the weights and biases have been frozen and incorporated in hardware that can be reproduced by manufacturing identical copies of the same physical circuit of components, just as it is in the case of an ANN in which the weights and biases can be altered. 

There is no justification for drawing a distinction in law between instructions created by a computer and those created by a human being. 

Once this is recognised, it cannot make a difference what particular method is used to program a computer to generate instructions which themselves constitute a computer program.  

IPPT20260211, UKSC, Emotional Perception AI v Comptroller General