1. Home
  2. |Insights
  3. |C3P-No! USPTO Says No AI Inventors

C3P-No! USPTO Says No AI Inventors

Client Alert | 1 min read | 05.04.20

Last Monday, the PTO affirmed its earlier (and unsurprising) position that a patent application filed in July was incomplete because it named an artificial intelligence as the inventor.  The application is believed to be among the first to name an AI as an inventor.

In reaffirming its position of AI non-inventorship, the PTO noted that the Title 35 consistently suggests personhood and refers to inventors as natural persons.  As one example, said the PTO, the statutes involving the inventor oath or declaration refer to the executor as a “person.”  Interpreting “inventor” to broadly encompass non-persons, argued the PTO, would contradict the plain reading of the statutes.

The USPTO also relied on Federal Circuit decisions that exclude states and corporations from holding inventorship.  These decisions, the PTO noted, explain that the entire concept of “conception” – the touchstone of inventorship – requires a human mind to do the conceiving.

The attempt to name an AI as the inventor illustrates how advances in AI technology continue to challenge our traditional thinking about personhood – and how the law will have to cope with the evolving concept.  Read the full decision here.

Insights

Client Alert | 6 min read | 03.26.24

California Office of Health Care Affordability Notice Requirement for Material Change Transactions Closing on or After April 1, 2024

Starting next week, on April 1st, health care entities in California closing “material change transactions” will be required to notify California’s new Office of Health Care Affordability (“OHCA”) and potentially undergo an extensive review process prior to closing. The new review process will impact a broad range of providers, payers, delivery systems, and pharmacy benefit managers with either a current California footprint or a plan to expand into the California market. While health care service plans in California are already subject to an extensive transaction approval process by the Department of Managed Health Care, other health care entities in California have not been required to file notices of transactions historically, and so the notice requirement will have a significant impact on how health care entities need to structure and close deals in California, and the timing on which closing is permitted to occur....