Eight On AI: Quick Considerations On Patenting Drug Discovery Therapeutics Using Artificial Intelligence (AI) And Life Science–Related Machine Learning (ML)

Many life science companies are using AI/ML to identify new disease targets and new therapeutics, predict the efficacy and toxicity of potential clinical therapeutic candidates, design clinical trials and dosing or treatment regimens, and more. Patenting strategies for each of these remain robust, but with AI/ML assistance during or as part of the discovery process, extra considerations may be warranted. These can include the following:

1. At least one human should have made a material contribution to the subject matter in every claim of a patent application or patent. Note that even typical patent claims directed to composition of matter and methods of use in which the claimed therapeutic or method was obtained in part by AI or ML may be susceptible to later patent challenge if no human contributions were made. Maintaining documentation of each human contribution to the claimed invention may be useful to defend and/or preempt such a challenge.