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AI cannot be listed as inventor, says US patent office in latest guidance | The technology can be used, but humans must make a "significant contribution" to an invention

The USPTO's new guidance on the use of artificial intelligence states that while AI-assisted inventions are not "categorically unpatentable, the inventorship analysis should focus on human contributions,...

"The right balance must be struck between awarding patent protection to promote human ingenuity and investment for AI-assisted inventions while not unnecessarily locking up innovation for future developments," writes Kathi Vidal, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO. "In some situations, the natural person(s) who designs, builds, or trains an AI system in view of a specific problem to elicit a particular solution could be an inventor," the agency said. That case involved Stephen Thaler, the founder of advanced artificial neural network technology company Imagination Engines Inc, who said his DABUS (Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience) system created unique prototypes for a beverage holder and an emergency light beacon.

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