Intellectual Property Rights and Artificial Intelligence: A Legal Perspective

Shiza Saad is a sophomore in the Walsh School of Foreign Service pursuing a major in International Politics and a minor in Chinese.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is bound to have a profound impact on intellectual property rights. As the line between AI-generated products and those created by humans becomes blurred, individuals are increasingly questioning AI’s role in relation to copyright laws, intellectual property rights, and patent laws. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) first issued “Inventorship Guidance for AI-Assisted Inventions” on February 13, 2024.¹ The USPTO rescinded this guidance in its entirety on November 28, 2025, stating that it was only applicable “when determining whether multiple natural persons qualify as joint inventors” and not when “only one natural person is involved in developing an invention with AI assistance because AI systems are not persons.”² Its new and updated guidance reinforced a principle of U.S. patent law: “AI cannot be named as an inventor on a patent application (or issued patent) and that only natural persons can be inventors.”³ The guidance also stated that “AI systems, including generative AI and other computational models, are instruments used by human inventors . . .  analogous to laboratory equipment, computer software, research databases, or any other tool that assists in the inventive process.”⁴ The USPTO’s guidance thus reiterates the role of human ingenuity in patentable inventions while also acknowledging the growing impact of AI on the inventive process. 

One of the latest developments in the realm of AI and human invention is the Supreme Court’s denial of certiorari in the Thaler v. Perlmutter case. Dr. Stephen Thaler, the petitioner, developed a generative AI system, the “Creativity Machine,” that autonomously created an artwork titled “A Recent Entrance to Paradise.”⁵ Thaler submitted a copyright application that labeled the “Creativity Machine” as the artwork’s only author in 2018, since, according to him, it lacked “traditional human authorship.”⁶ Additionally, Thaler  was denied registration by the U.S. Copyright Office in 2022, which stated that works must be made by human beings in order to be copyrighted.⁷ Thaler challenged that decision in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, which affirmed the Copyright Office’s denial of registration and concluded that “[h]uman authorship is a bedrock requirement of copyright” in 2023.⁸ The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld the district court’s ruling in 2025.⁹ Finally, Thaler appealed to the Supreme Court, which declined to review his case on March 2, 2026.¹⁰ This ruling demonstrates a consistent view among courts and administrative bodies that, in order to receive intellectual property protection, a human must be involved in the inventive and creative process. 

The Thaler v. Perlmutter case and its ultimate resolution—that AI cannot be listed as the author of a copyrightable work under current interpretations of the Copyright Act—allays many people’s concerns about generative AI’s potential to replace human creativity.¹¹ However, as AI evolves, questions about the boundaries of human authorship will undoubtedly be raised again. For now, careful documentation of human and AI contributions to inventions is critical. Specifically, inventors must be able to explain the conception of their product, “whether through the construction of specific prompts, the selection and arrangement of training data, or the post-processing and refinement of AI-generated output.” Otherwise, if human reliance on AI obscures individual contributions to inventions, inventions may be dedicated to the public in the future, absent the clear proof of personal authorship necessary for a copyright.

1.  Inventorship Guidance for AI-Assisted Inventions, 89 Fed. Reg. 10,043 (Feb. 13, 2024) (issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office), https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2024-02623. ↩︎
2. Revised Inventorship Guidance for AI-Assisted Inventions, 90 Fed. Reg. 54,636 (Nov. 28, 2025) (issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office), https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2025-21457. ↩︎
3. Id. ↩︎
4. Id. ↩︎
5. Edward D. Lanquist et al., Supreme Court Denies Certiorari in Thaler v. Perlmutter: AI Cannot Be an Author Under the Copyright Act, Baker Donelson (Mar. 5, 2026), https://www.bakerdonelson.com/supreme-court-denies-certiorari-in-thaler-v-perlmutter-ai-cannot-be-an-author-under-the-copyright-act. ↩︎
6. Id. ↩︎
7. Id. ↩︎
8. Thaler v. Perlmutter, 687 F. Supp. 3d 140 (D.D.C. 2023). ↩︎
9. Thaler v. Perlmutter, 130 F.4th 1039 (D.C. Cir. 2025). ↩︎
10.  Jacob W.S. Schneider, The Final Word? Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Case on AI Authorship and Inventorship, Holland & Knight: IP/Decode Blog (Mar. 3, 2026), https://www.hklaw.com/en/insights/publications/2026/03/the-final-word-supreme-court-refuses-to-hear-case-on-ai-authorship. ↩︎
11.  Rebecca Dziobon, Edmund Forey, & Lucy Aylmer, AI, Art and Global Approaches to Copyright Law: US Supreme Court Declines to Review the Case of Thaler v Perlmutter, Pennington Manches Cooper (Mar. 26, 2026), https://www.penningtonslaw.com/insights/ai-art-and-global-approaches-to-copyright-law-us-supreme-court-declines-to-review-the-case-of-thaler-v-perlmutter/.
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