However, to be able to register a patent, the person using the AI must’ve contributed significantly to the invention’s conception. A person simply asking an AI system to create something and overseeing it, the report says, does not make them an inventor. The office says that a person who simply presents the problem to an AI system or “recognizes and appreciates” its output as a good invention can’t claim credit for that patent.
“However, a significant contribution could be shown by the way the person constructs the prompt in view of a specific problem to elicit a particular solution from the AI system,” the USPTO says. The office also says that “maintaining ‘intellectual domination’ over an AI system does not, on its own, make a person an inventor” — so simply overseeing or owning an AI that creates things doesn’t mean you can file a patent for them.