On the 27th of April, 2020, the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) published a petition decision which states that it is not legal that Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems are listed or credited as an inventor in a US patent application. Under current law, only natural persons may be named as inventors of patents, limiting inventorship to humans and excluding AI systems, at least for the time being. 

Andrei Iancu, the Director of the USPTO, states on their website that "one of the agency's top priorities is to ensure that the United States maintains its leadership in innovation, especially in emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI). To that end, the USPTO has been actively engaging with the innovation community and experts in AI to determine whether further guidance is needed to promote the predictability and reliability of intellectual property rights relating to AI technology and to encourage further innovation in and around this critical area." 

The ruling of the USPTO on the petition of AI inventorship follows similar rulings made by the European Patent Office and the UK Intellectual Property Office. The decision of the USPTO came in response to two patents that had been created by an Artificial Intelligence system called DABUS and concerned a flashing light and a food container – thus, it is widely referred to as “DABUS decision”. 

As to an interesting article on that topic written by partners Jason D. Krieser, Shawn C. Helms, Adam J. Camiel of the renowned global law firm McDermott, Will & Emery, which was published on their website on the 8th of May, 2020, the key decision of the USPTO to limit inventorship on US patents to natural persons seems unlikely to be the final answer on that topic. As to the authors, the DABUS decision will probably not be the last time that the USPTO addresses the issue of inventorship by machine, as AI systems continue to advance and begin to look more like human creators. 

For the time being, AI is still being seen as an inventing tool, rather than an inventor – however, if the law changes in the future, this perception might change as well. 

The decision of the USPTO is available on the Artificial Intelligence page and the Final Decisions by the Commissioner for Patents page of the USPTO website. It was published pursuant to 37 CFR 1.14(e).