AI Is Inventing Molecules: Why U.S. Patent Law Must Allow Owners of Inventions To File Patent Applications Without Naming Inventors

Associate Gibson Donnan contributed legal research to this article. 

Abstract

Artificial intelligence is already inventing or coinventing molecules. Whether identifying novel therapeutic uses for existing drugs, generating entirely new antibiotic structures, discovering first-in-class small molecules, or redesigning proteins with unprecedented properties, AI systems increasingly perform functions that closely resemble the inventive activities historically carried out by human researchers.

The USPTO’s current approach, reflected in its 2025 Revised Inventorship Guidance on AI-Assisted Inventions, attempts to avoid this reality by treating AI as a mere laboratory tool. But legal fictions eventually collide with technological facts. The Revised Guidance obscures rather than resolves the central inventorship question. By declining to analyze AI contributions under the same standards applied to human contributors and by assuming that AI can never contribute to conception in a legally meaningful way, the Revised Guidance risks encouraging issuance of patents whose inventorship may ultimately prove incorrect and uncorrectable.

We propose that Congress should modernize the patent statutes so that patent applications may be filed by the legal or equitable owners of inventions without requiring identification of individual inventors. Such a framework would preserve the disclosure incentives that make the patent system valuable while avoiding increasingly artificial attempts to force AI-assisted innovation into doctrines developed for exclusively human inventors.

Introduction

Artificial intelligence (“AI”) is no longer a speculative tool in drug discovery. It is already generating new molecular structures, identifying new therapeutic uses for existing drugs, and redesigning proteins with properties that exceed those achieved by human researchers. Yet the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”), in its Revised Inventorship Guidance for AI-Assisted Inventions, has interpreted the Federal Circuit’s decision in Thaler v. Vidal[1] to mean that AI should be treated merely as a sophisticated laboratory tool.[2] This legal fiction is becoming—and may soon become—untenable. The Revised Guidance goes further than Thaler. It asserts that because AI cannot legally be a joint inventor, “there is no joint inventorship question to analyze.”[3] This approach collapses two distinct inquiries into one: (1) who conceived the invention, and (2) who may legally be named as an inventor. The result is a structural trap.[4]

This article argues that the U.S. patent system is drifting toward a reckoning. The number of inventions generated wholly or partly by AI is increasing rapidly, particularly in pharmaceuticals and biotechnology. If AI provides a contribution that is “not insignificant in quality[] when . . . measured against the dimension of the full invention,” as contemplated by Pannu v. Iolab Corp.,[5] the human participant’s conception may be nonexistent or incomplete. In that circumstance, the patent may be filed and issued with incorrect inventorship. Because AI cannot be added as an inventor under current law, the error may be uncorrectable, and the patent would be invalid.

If the USPTO continues to insist that AI contributions should not be analyzed as part of inventorship and continues to treat AI as incapable of inventing or coinventing, the consequences will be severe: invalid patents, increased reliance on trade secrecy, reduced disclosure, and diminished investment in innovative drug research.

We propose a targeted statutory solution that fits well with the present U.S. patent statute. Several sections of the statute, such as the basic “Definitions” in 35 U.S.C. §§ 100(f), (g), and (h), already distinguish between the narrow term “individual,” which refers to a human being, and the broader term “person,” which includes both individuals and corporate entities.[6] Continuing with this statutory distinction, in Section VI(A) this article proposes amendments to (i) remove the requirement for human-only inventors by replacing the term “individual” with “inventive entity”; (ii) facilitate filing by legal or equitable owners—not just assignees; and (iii) remove the requirement for an oath in those Sections that require one. This approach preserves the constitutional structure of the patent system while aligning patent law with technological reality.

Before discussing the legal framework, it is useful to examine real-world examples of AI-assisted molecular inventions and to consider the relative conceptual contributions of humans and AI. In doing so, let us make clear at the outset that we do not—and cannot—provide legal opinions on the proper inventorship of the published instances of AI-assisted molecular inventions. We have neither a complete set of facts nor the human researchers’ testimonies to reach anything approaching an informed opinion. At best, our analyses are a discussion on how one might apply the existing case law on inventorship to situations involving AI.

Originally printed in IDEA: The Law Review of the Franklin Pierce Center for Intellectual Property on August 18, 2026. Reprinted with permission.

[1] Thaler v. Vidal, 43 F.4th 1207 (Fed. Cir. 2022) (holding only humans may be named as inventors), cert. denied, 143 S. Ct. 1783 (2023).

[2] Revised Inventorship Guidance for AI-Assisted Inventions, 90 Fed. Reg. 54636, 54636–37 (Nov. 28, 2025).

[3] Id. at 54636.

[4] See, e.g., Volpe Koenig, If AI Can Be Rightfully Named As A Joint Inventor, Is The Patent Invalid? JD SUPRA, (May 20, 2026), https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/if-ai-can-be-rightfully-named-as-a-6592719/, [https://perma.cc/JPP6-G5BE]; Brian Hausman, Patent Invalidity Due to Incorrect Inventorship, JD SUPRA, (June 2, 2026), https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/patent-invalidity-due-to-incorrect-1316391/ [https://perma.cc/N79P-MSSS] (demonstrating that commentators have recently noted potential problems with the proscription of naming AI as inventor or co-inventor).

[5] Pannu v. Iolab Corp., 155 F.3d 1344, 1351 (Fed. Cir. 1998).

[6] See 35 U.S.C. §§ 100(f)–(h); Thaler, 43 F.4th at 1211 (noting that “‘individual’ . . . refers to human beings” and “‘person’ broadly include[s] . . . ‘corporations . . . as well as individuals.’”).