While the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit made clear this year that only humans can be inventors and that an AI program itself cannot obtain a patent (see our prior coverage of Thaler v. Vidal ), this in no way means that AI-assisted inventions are not patentable. While the output of an AI program may not be innovative (often it is not novel, for example), the means by which that output can be generated may be. Expect to see more cases that address these issues in the coming year. And, of course, trade secret and copyright protection remain available if the right steps are taken to preserve such rights for all sorts of AI-assisted products and services.
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