Key Points
On August 5, 2022, the Federal Circuit held in Thaler v. Vidal that the term "inventor" under the United States Patent Act must be a human being.
This ruling precludes patent protection for inventions where the sole inventor is an AI system.
Given the rapidly evolving world of AI, this ruling is likely to be the first of many decisions tasked with determining the role of AI within larger universe of intellectual property. Read more