On February 12, 2024, the US Patent Office and Trademark Office (USPTO) released the Inventorship Guidance for AI-assisted Inventions (the Guidance). We previously discussed the Guidance here.
Following up on the Guidance, the USPTO released two examples illustrating what the USPTO considers proper inventorship analyses for AI-assisted inventions. Each example sets forth different fact patterns and walks through an analysis of whether one or more human individuals qualify as inventors. Acknowledging that life sciences companies are increasingly employing AI systems to help identify molecular targets and/or design therapeutic molecules, one of the two examples focuses on the use of AI to develop therapeutic molecules: Developing a Therapeutic Compound for Treating Cancer (Example 2).
Life sciences companies using AI-assisted systems should carefully consider whether their current R&D efforts allow for natural persons to provide a significant contribution such that the resulting efforts may properly identify a human inventor.
Read the full alert here.