Patent Office Releases Revised Guidance Regarding AI-Assisted Inventions

The United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued updated guidance on inventorship for AI-assisted inventions.  Although this formally rescinds and replaces its February 2024 guidance, the substance does not change much.

The revised guidance reaffirms long-established legal principles.  The same standard for determining inventorship still applies to all inventions, regardless of whether artificial intelligence systems were involved in the inventive process.  The Patent Office is not creating a new or modified inventorship standard specifically for AI-assisted inventions.

U.S. patent law continues to recognize only natural persons as inventors. Under 35 U.S.C. § 100(f), an “inventor” is defined as the individual who conceived the subject matter of the invention, and the term “invention” refers to the inventor’s conception, as confirmed by longstanding precedent.  The USPTO therefore maintains that inventorship must be attributed solely to human beings.  In other words, patent applications must continue to name humans – and only humans – as inventors.

The USPTO will continue to presume that the inventors identified in the application data sheet or oath/declaration are the actual human inventors.  AI systems, such as generative AI and other computational models, are regarded as tools that may assist in the inventive process, but such assistance does not confer inventorship status.  Like any other tool, AI cannot itself qualify as an inventor.

This revised guidance implements Executive Order 14179, issued January 23, 2025, titled “Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence,” which directs federal agencies to review and update policies established under the prior administration to ensure they support and advance U.S. leadership in AI.