AI-Assisted Inventions Can be Patented if a Human "Significantly Contributed"
February 13, 2024
According to guidance from the U.S. PTO available here, inventions where a “natural person” uses AI can be patented. The memo states:
- A natural person’s use of an AI system in creating an AI-assisted invention does not negate the person’s contributions as an inventor. The natural person can be listed as the inventor or joint inventor if the natural person contributes significantly to the AI-assisted invention.
- Merely recognizing a problem or having a general goal or research plan to pursue does not rise to the level of conception. A natural person who only presents a problem to an AI system may not be a proper inventor or joint inventor of an invention identified from the output of the AI system. However, a significant contribution could be shown by the way the person constructs the prompt in view of a specific problem to elicit a particular solution from the AI system.
- A person who takes the output of an AI system and makes a significant contribution to the output to create an invention may be a proper inventor.
- The natural person(s) who designs, builds, or trains an AI system in view of a specific problem to elicit a particular solution could be an inventor, where the designing, building, or training of the AI system is a significant contribution to the invention created with the AI system.
The agency said on Monday that a person can receive a patent for an AI-assisted invention when the person “significantly contributed” to the invention. It said such a determination “may be difficult to ascertain” and has “no bright-line test.”
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