Artificial Intelligence Assisted Intellectual Property (Inventorship And Authorship)

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly changing the way people create and invent. The applicable intellectual property laws and procedures are working to keep up with this advancing technology. Intellectual property laws and rules focus on human creativity. Generative AI produces results that are not directly programmed, but trained. Hence, AI outputs are not fully predictable. This discussion takes a look at the current laws, rules and guidelines of US patents and copyrights, to see how AI-assisted creations fit into these parameters.

US Patent Law: AI Is Not an Inventor

On the patent side, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals articulated that AI by itself cannot be listed as an inventor.¹ The applicant listed the AI program as the sole inventor on the patent application. The court decided that an inventor must be a natural person, since the inventorship statute of the Patent Act lists an inventor as an "individual".² The court did not address AI-assisted