Federal Circuit: an AI cannot be an inventor

In Thaler v. Vidal, the Federal Circuit held that an “inventor” under the Patent Act must be a natural person, so an AI system cannot be named as the inventor of a patent. The Supreme Court declined to review the decision in 2023.

Patent law reached the same answer as copyright. USPTO guidance permits patents on AI-assisted inventions where a natural person contributed to the conception of the invention; an invention with no human inventive contribution is not patentable. A purely AI-conceived invention is not patentable, and naming a human who did not actually invent it risks invalidating the patent later.

This page reflects current U.S. copyright law and general international principles. It is provided for educational purposes and does not constitute legal advice.