United States Patent and Trademark Office Issues Revised Guidance on Inventorship for AI-Assisted Inventions

On November 28, 2025, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued revised examination guidance on inventorship for AI‑assisted inventions. The guidance rescinds the USPTO’s prior approach, clarifies the governing legal standards, and provides updated instructions for practitioners and applicants in light of recent developments in artificial intelligence.

Key Takeaways

• Only natural persons qualify as inventors or joint inventors on US patent applications, including those involving AI‑assisted inventions.
• AI systems are tools that assist in the inventive process and do not qualify as inventors.
• The traditional conception standard governs inventorship; joint inventorship principles continue to apply among human contributors.
• The guidance applies to utility, design, and plant patents.
• Priority claims must include at least one overlapping natural person as an inventor; claims based solely on AI inventorship will not be accepted.

Rescission of Prior Guidance

The new guidance implements Executive Order 14179 of January 23, 2025 (Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence), which directs agencies to review and revise policies established under the prior administration, to promote US leadership in AI. In rescinding the February 13, 2024 guidance, the USPTO removed the focus on the Pannu factors by clarifying that these factors address joint inventorship among multiple natural persons and are inapplicable where a single natural person develops an invention with AI assistance.

Governing Legal Standards for AI‑Assisted Inventions

The USPTO emphasized that there is no separate or modified legal standard for inventorship in AI‑assisted contexts. The same standard applies to all inventions: only natural persons qualify as inventors on patent applications and issued patents. The guidance reiterates that AI systems—including generative AI and other computational models—are tools used by humans, analogous to laboratory equipment or software, that assist in the inventive process. This approach aligns with Federal Circuit precedent that artificial intelligence systems, regardless of sophistication, cannot be named as inventors or joint inventors. Applications listing an AI system or other non‑natural person as an inventor or joint inventor will be rejected under 35 U.S.C. §§ 101 and 115.

Conception Is Key

While acknowledging that AI systems may generate ideas or identify relationships, the guidance treats AI as an assistive tool. Inventorship requires at least one human who conceived the claimed invention. The Federal Circuit’s inventorship inquiry centers on “conception”—the formation, by a natural person, of a definite and permanent idea of the complete and operative invention. The USPTO identifies as the key question “whether the natural person possessed knowledge of all of the limitations of the claimed invention such that it is so ‘clearly defined in the inventor’s mind that only ordinary skill would be necessary to reduce the invention to practice, without extensive research or experimentation.’”

For a single natural person, the traditional conception test continues to govern. The analysis focuses on the ability of an inventor to “describe an invention with particularity.” It places the focus on what must be clearly defined in the inventor’s mind and the inventor’s ability to describe the invention. Where AI tools provide a relationship, parameter, or design choice that the human had not previously appreciated, applicants should be prepared to show how the human contributor selected, specified, and integrated that AI‑identified feature into the claimed solution.

For multiple natural persons, joint inventorship principles—including the Pannu factors, which require that each joint inventor make a significant contribution to conception—remain applicable. The use of AI tools does not alter the joint inventorship analysis among human contributors.

Applicability to Design and Plant Patents

The guidance applies to utility, design, and plant patents. For design patents, the inventorship inquiry mirrors that of utility patents. For plant patents, the inventor must have contributed to the creation of the plant and appreciated its uniqueness, regardless of AI assistance.

Benefit/Priority Claims Involving AI‑Assisted Inventions

For applications and patents claiming the benefit of or priority to earlier filings, the same inventorship requirements apply. The prior and subsequent applications must name the same natural person as inventor, or share at least one joint inventor in common. Priority claims to foreign applications naming only AI tools as inventors will not be accepted. Where foreign applications name both natural and non‑natural persons, only the natural persons may be listed as inventors in the US application.

Practical Clarity

This revised guidance provides practical clarity for applicants and practitioners navigating AI‑assisted innovation and underscores the continued centrality of “conception” by a natural person in the inventive process.