Bridging the artificial intelligence inventorship gap

Objective: to study the gaps in the legal regulation of relations in the sphere of inventions made by artificial intelligence. Methods: dialectical approach to cognition of social phenomena, allowing to analyze them in historical development and functioning in the context of the totality of objective and subjective factors, which predetermined the following research methods: formal-logical and sociological. Results: in Thaler v. Vidal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that an artificial intelligence (AI) machine cannot be an inventor under patent law. This decision leaves open the question of whether a natural person can be the legal inventor of AI-generated inventions. This is a pressing question because it decides whether AI-generated inventions are patentable, as no patent rights can exist without an inventor. Scholars have proposed two doctrines that might resolve this question: the doctrine of simultaneous conception and reduction to practice and the doctrine of first to recognize and appreciate. This article analyzes the two doctrines and argues that neither doctrine readily applies to AI-generated inventions, thereby leaving an “inventorship gap”. Scientific novelty: the article is the first to pose and solve the problem of legal regulation of inventions made with the help of artificial intelligence and to state the need for the U.S. Congress to amend the copyright law in terms of recognizing a physical person who uses artificial intelligence to generate inventions as the author of such inventions. It bridges the gap in legal regulation of relations in the sphere of inventions and patenting and facilitates the goals of the patent system. Practical significance: the main provisions and conclusions of the article can be used in scientific, pedagogical and law enforcement activities when considering the issues related to the legal regulation of relations in the sphere of inventions made by artificial intelligence.