AIBRIEF
Insilico Medicine says its generative AI discovered a new molecule for pulmonary fibrosis, but the patent application names a CEO and four other humans as the sole inventors, because US law requires it.
Insilico Medicine, a biotech that designs drugs with generative AI, said in a press release that its platform "discovered" a new molecule for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a serious lung disease. The patent application for that molecule names five humans, including chief executive Alex Zhavoronkov, as the sole inventors, with no mention of the machine.
US patent law gives the company no other option. In 2022, a federal appeals court in Washington, DC held that a US inventor must be an "individual," meaning, in the statute's plain reading, a human being. The ruling came in a case brought by Ryan Abbott. The court said no. The US Patent and Trademark Office has held that line since.
"There needs to be a human inventor or there's no invention and no patent," Korman said. "There is no doubt," she added, "our laws will need to evolve." The shape of that evolution, and who gets to write it, is the part Insilico's own paperwork still leaves blank.