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The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has published the Revised Inventorship Guidance for AI-Assisted Inventions on November 26, 2025, withdrawing its prior guidance from February 2024. The guidance, issued to implement Executive Order 14179, affirms that only "natural persons" can be named as inventors. The core message is clear: inventorship determinations for Artificial Intelligence (AI)-assisted inventions should be no different from those for any other invention, because AI is a tool, not an inventor. This approach streamlines the process for determining inventorship and avoids creating a separate, more complex legal standard for inventions that are made with the assistance of AI.
What is Changing About the Inventorship Standard?
The USPTO has simplified and reaffirmed its position on inventorship for inventions created with the aid of technology, withdrawing previous, more complex guidance.
The most significant change is that the new guidance removes the requirement to apply the Pannu joint-inventorship factors to single-inventor, AI-assisted inventions. This simplifies the inventorship analysis by reaffirming that the same legal standard applies to all inventions, regardless of whether AI assistance is involved.
The new guidance explicitly states that the same longstanding legal standard for determining inventorship applies to all inventions, regardless of whether Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems were utilized in the process. This maintains the principle that no new, separate, or modified standard applies simply because AI was involved.
Who is a Proper Inventor under U.S. Law?
The USPTO maintains that only natural persons (human beings) can be properly named as inventors on patent applications.
- Legal Basis: The definition of an inventor is "the individual... who invented or discovered the subject matter of the invention," as outlined in 35 U.S.C. § 100(f).
- Conception Requirement: Inventorship centers on the conception of the invention, which is fundamentally a human mental act. The Supreme Court established that the "'invention' in the Patent Act unquestionably refers to the inventor's conception." (Pfaff v. Wells Elecs., Inc., 525 U.S. 55, 60 (1988)).
- AI as a Tool: Under the new guidance, AI systems, including generative AI and other computational models, are explicitly deemed tools used by human inventors. Like a piece of lab equipment, an AI system may assist, but its contribution does not qualify or elevate it to inventor status.
International Considerations
While this guidance clarifies the process for U.S. inventors and emphasizes that, in the U.S., AI is considered a tool and not an inventor, some foreign jurisdictions may recognize AI as an inventor. Applicants must be cognizant of the differences when leveraging foreign patent systems.
- Priority Claim Invalidation: A U.S. application cannot claim priority to a foreign application that only has an AI tool listed as sole inventor. When filing in the U.S., any priority claims should be carefully scrutinized to ensure they align with U.S. standards.
- Essential Safeguard: Applicants who are considering filing in the U.S. must ensure that their foreign priority applications have at least one natural person listed as an inventor, even if the foreign jurisdiction permits listing the AI tool as a co-inventor.
- Filing in the US when AI tool is listed as Joint Inventor: If a U.S. application claims priority to a foreign application that names both a natural person(s) and a non-natural person (like an AI tool) as a joint inventor, the application data sheet filed in the United States must list only the natural person(s) identified as the inventor(s). This ensures at least one natural person inventor is common to both applications.
Caveat – Duty of Disclosure
Applicants maintain a duty to disclose information material to patentability. This duty applies if AI is used in conceiving the invention or not. While there is no affirmative duty to disclose AI use, in some instances, Applicants may need to disclose information regarding AI use. For example, facts that may demonstrate a named human inventor did not conceive the claimed invention under the traditional standard when extensive AI assistance was used should be disclosed.
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