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The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has clarified its ground rules governing AI-assisted inventions. The new guidance states that inventors are free to use AI systems during their invention process without these AI systems becoming legal co-inventors.
“They are analogous to laboratory equipment, computer software, research databases, or any other tool that assists in the inventive process,” reads the guidance, first reported by Reuters. The same principles apply to AI systems as “they may provide services and generate ideas, but they remain tools used by the human inventor who conceived the claimed invention."
“Artificial intelligence systems, regardless of their sophistication, cannot be named as inventors or joint inventors on a patent application, as they are not natural persons.”
When multiple people create an invention with AI assistance, the organization will apply its traditional joint-inventorship principles, including what’s known as the “Pannu factors.”
The guidance comes after President Biden’s Executive Order on AI, issued in October 2023, told federal agencies to clarify how intellectual property law would apply to AI. The new guidance supersedes previous guidelines published in February 2024.
Plenty of other countries are taking a similar hardline approach. In December 2023, the UK Supreme Court rejected a bid by computer scientist Stephen Thaler to patent an idea for a food-and-drink container using his AI system DABUS as the inventor. Thaler has also made failed attempts to get his AI registered as an inventor in the EU.
Still, plenty of legal experts think that co-crediting AIs as inventors is logical and necessary. On LinkedIn, Professor Mark Lemley from Stanford Law School accused the USPTO of "assuming that ignoring AI conception somehow takes care of the problem" when it does not.
"In practice, I suspect this means applicants will lie about who made AI-generated inventions, the PTO will let them, and those patents will be in trouble if and when they are enforced in court," Lemley said.