The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), an agency of the Department of Commerce, announced new guidelines before the holiday weekend meant to clarify when inventions that are developed with the assistance of artificial intelligence can be legally patented. The agency defines generative AI systems to be “analogous to laboratory equipment, computer software, research databases, or any other tool that assists in the inventive process,” explained USPTO Director John Squires. According to the updated guidelines, AI systems “may provide services and generate ideas, but they remain tools used by the human inventor who conceived the claimed invention.”

“When one natural person is involved in creating an invention with the assistance of AI, the inquiry is whether that person conceived the invention under the traditional conception standard,” as detailed in the Governing Legal Standards section of the revised document.

“The office reiterated its guidance from last year that AI itself cannot be considered an inventor under U.S. patent law,” reports Reuters. “However, it rejected the approach taken by the PTO during former President Joe Biden’s administration for deciding when AI-assisted inventions are patentable, which relied on a standard normally used to determine when multiple people can qualify as joint inventors.”

“The same legal standard for determining inventorship applies to all inventions, regardless of whether AI systems were used in the inventive process,” notes the agency. “There is no separate or modified standard for AI-assisted inventions.”

Reuters points out that “U.S. courts have determined that AI systems cannot receive patents for AI-generated inventions, but have not yet considered when a person can receive patents for inventions conceived with the help of AI.”

Other nations have taken a similar 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,” PCMag writes. “Thaler has also made failed attempts to get his AI registered as an inventor in the EU.”

“In practice, I suspect this means applicants will lie about who made AI-generated inventions,” suggests Stanford Law Professor Mark Lemley on LinkedIn. “The PTO will let them, and those patents will be in trouble if and when they are enforced in court.”

Related:
USPTO’s Revised Inventorship Guidance for AI-Assisted Inventions: What Changed, What Stayed, and What Practitioners Should Do Now, The National Law Review, 12/1/25