US patent law still demands a human inventor even when an AI did the creative work, and that rule is now colliding with the rise of AI-designed drugs.
The tension shows up at Insilico Medicine. The company’s press materials credited its generative AI platform with discovering a promising pulmonary fibrosis drug, but the patent protecting that molecule names five people, including CEO Alex Zhavoronkov.
Courts have drawn the line clearly. In 2022, a Washington, DC appeals court ruled that the word “individual” in US patent statutes means a human being, closing a test case in which attorney Ryan Abbott tried to name the AI system DABUS as an inventor.
Sarah Korman runs business and legal affairs at Isomorphic Labs, an Alphabet spinout. She says US law leaves no room for machines on the inventor line. No human, no patent.
Biden-era guidance weighed when people qualify as co-inventors of AI discoveries. The current administration instead treats AI as an ordinary tool, and filers do not even have to disclose its use.
Abbott worries about the consequences. Listing the wrong inventors is a standard way to invalidate a patent, so AI-generated drugs could become litigation targets. He also argues that refusing protection for AI outputs would chill drug development.
For now, pioneering companies keep humans firmly in the loop. At Insilico, human chemists still synthesize molecules and run animal tests, and those people are the ones named on the patents.
