Insilico Medicine publicly credited its AI for discovering a pulmonary fibrosis drug, then listed only humans on the patent.
US law says only humans can be inventors—machines cannot.
As AI generates more drug designs independently, the legal definition of inventor may face challenges.
What happened
Insilico Medicine used AI to design a drug for pulmonary fibrosis and publicly credited its AI platform as the discoverer—but when filing the patent, listed five humans, including CEO Alex Zhavoronkov, as inventors. A 2022 US appeals court ruled that because statutes define an inventor as an "individual" (a human being), machines cannot legally be named inventors, even if they played the central role in the discovery.
Why it matters
The patent system exists to encourage innovation by granting exclusive rights to inventors. As AI systems generate drug designs with less human input, the question of who qualifies as an inventor becomes legally and commercially critical. If a patent lists the wrong inventors—or if AI work is excluded from protection altogether—it could weaken patent claims or deter companies from pursuing AI-driven drug development, according to patent attorney Ryan Abbott, who brought the test case.
What to watch
The US Patent and Trademark Office currently treats AI as a tool (like a calculator) and does not require applicants to disclose its use. However, Abbott warns that future legal challenges could invalidate patents for incorrect inventor lists. Patent attorney Sarah Korman (chief business officer of Isomorphic Labs, an Alphabet spinout) stated at MIT Technology Review's EmTech event that "there is no doubt our laws will need to evolve to keep pace with AI."
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Insilico Medicine's dual messaging—celebrating AI discovery in the press but claiming human inventorship in the patent—reveals a fundamental tension in how the law treats artificial intelligence. The company's approach reflects a broader defensive strategy: companies using AI for drug discovery are keeping humans visibly involved and carefully documenting their contributions, precisely because the legal system does not yet recognize machines as inventors.
The legal framework traces to a 2022 appeals court decision prompted by patent attorney Ryan Abbott's pro bono test case. Abbott had argued that an AI system called DABUS should be named as the inventor of a heat-transfer food container, since no human had contributed to its design. The court rejected this on statutory grounds: US law defines an inventor as an "individual," plainly meaning a human being. The decision sidestepped deeper questions about whether AIs deserve legal personhood or whether they can truly "invent"—instead ruling that machines are categorically excluded from inventorship regardless of their role.
The stakes are real. Abbott and others argue that if US policy excludes AI outputs from patent protection, companies may lack incentive to develop AI-driven drugs and may even face invalidation of existing patents if the wrong inventors are named. The US Copyright Office is already refusing to grant copyrights to AI-generated text and images, which has raised concerns from media companies. Patent law, Abbott notes, exists to "promote the Progress of Science and the Useful Arts" by granting exclusive rights to inventors and authors—a goal that may be undermined if AI contributions are legally invisible. For now, the Trump administration's approach treats AI as a mere tool requiring no disclosure, and companies are responding by ensuring humans remain in the loop, at least documentably. Whether that is enough—or whether future legal cases will force a reckoning with the true division of labor between human and machine—remains open.
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