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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.

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Client Alert | 3 min read | 07.08.25

DOJ and HHS Launch FCA Working Group: Heightened Enforcement Risk for Health Care Entities

On July 2, 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Civil Division and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) jointly announced the formation of a False Claims Act (FCA) Working Group. This new initiative underscores a coordinated federal enforcement strategy focused on identifying and addressing fraud in federally funded health care programs, particularly Medicare Advantage and Medicaid managed care. The announcement comes days after Matthew R. Galeotti, Head of DOJ’s Criminal Division, announced the results of the “largest coordinated health care fraud takedown in the history of the Department of Justice”  and the creation of a “Health Care Fraud Data Fusion Center” comprised of data specialists that will “break down information silos, using coordinated data analysis to enable our investigative teams to quickly identify and dismantle emerging fraud schemes.” Taken together, these announcements demonstrate the DOJ’s effort—in both civil and criminal divisions—to strengthen its collaboration with HHS to investigate and prosecute health care fraud....