Insilico Medicine used AI to propose a drug for pulmonary fibrosis, but the patent does not name the AI system as an inventor. It names five humans, including the company’s CEO, Alex Zhavoronkov.
That detail captures a growing problem in drug discovery: AI can help create something new, but patent law still requires a human inventor. The technology may shape the work, suggest the design, and take part in a process that once depended on people. The legal credit, however, goes to humans.
Why AI cannot appear as an inventor
US courts have concluded that an inventor must be an “individual,” and that word is interpreted to mean a human being. In 2022, an appeals court in Washington, DC, made a ruling involving AI as an inventor, reinforcing the position that an AI system cannot receive inventor status under current US patent law.
The case involved Ryan Abbott, a lawyer who brought a test case involving DABUS, an AI system. The argument was direct: “No human contributed to the design, Abbott argued that the AI should be named the inventor.” If a machine creates the idea without a human contribution, the case asked, should a person still receive the legal credit?
Abbott also framed the question around the purpose of intellectual property law. “It’s right there in Article 1 of the US Constitution, which says inventors and authors need to be given exclusive rights to their ideas, for a limited time, in order ‘to promote the Progress of Science and the Useful Arts.’”
That argument creates a difficult line for courts and patent officials. If the law exists to encourage new ideas, excluding AI from the inventor field may seem out of step with how discoveries are made. But changing the legal meaning of “inventor” would require more than simply adding AI to a patent form.
The human role is still central, even with powerful AI
The US Patent and Trademark Office has acknowledged that an AI system may perform acts that could constitute inventorship if a human performed them. At the same time, the agency has published guidance to help determine whether humans qualify as co-inventors of discoveries involving AI.
That guidance has not remained fixed. Under different administrations, the US patent office has reversed course and now states that AI is merely a tool. The shift leaves researchers and companies working through a legal system that recognizes AI’s role in discovery but does not give AI the legal status of an inventor.
Sarah Korman, a patent attorney and legal officer of Isomorphic Labs, put the current position plainly: “There needs to be a human inventor or there’s no invention and no patent.” Her statement reflects the rule that shapes the Insilico Medicine patent, where five humans receive the inventor designation even though AI proposed the drug.
Zhavoronkov has argued that a human role remains even in a process run by machines. “And even if you decided to completely roboticize this process, including the experiments, someone will still push the button and give the budget.” That view treats funding, control, and responsibility as meaningful human contributions.
Yet the boundary becomes harder to draw as AI takes on more of the creative and scientific work. Abbott offered a simple example: “What if I asked Claude to cure cancer, and it did? I think it would be inappropriate to claim that I invented that.” The question is not only who operates the system, but who deserves credit when the system produces the central idea.
Patents and copyrights are facing the same question
The debate does not stop with drug patents. The US Copyright Office is refusing to grant copyrights to images and text generated by AI. That position creates a similar distinction: AI can generate the work, but the legal system does not automatically treat the machine as the creator or give its output the same protection as human work.
Patents and copyrights cover different kinds of intellectual property, yet both disputes ask where human contribution begins and ends. In one area, the issue concerns who invented a drug. In the other, it concerns whether AI-generated images and text qualify for copyright protection.
For companies using AI to discover drugs, the practical result is clear: humans must remain part of the patent story. Insilico Medicine’s patent lists five human inventors, including Zhavoronkov, rather than naming the AI that proposed the drug. The legal framework does not erase the system’s role, but it assigns the recognized credit to people.
The larger question remains open. AI can perform acts that might count as inventorship if a human performed them, yet US courts still require a human inventor. Until that tension is resolved, the names on patents will describe the people behind the system, not the system itself.
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