Patent Office Publishes Artificial Intelligence Strategy to Enable Responsible Innovation

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced on January 14, 2025, a new which provides a vision for how the USPTO can encourage accountable AI innovation. The Patent Office has indicated that patent application filings of AI-related inventions have risen more than two-fold since 2002 and are up 33% since 2018. These AI-related patent applications encompass a broad range of technologies.

The strategy attempts to achieve the strategy through five focus areas, which include: 

1. Advance the development of IP policies that promote inclusive AI innovation and creativity. 
2. Build best-in-class AI capabilities by investing in computational infrastructure, data resources and business-driven product development. 
3. Promote the responsible use of AI within the USPTO and across the broader innovation ecosystem.
4. Develop AI expertise within the USPTO’s workforce.
5. Collaborate with other U.S. government agencies, international partners and the public on shared AI priorities.

The full text of the AI Strategy can be found on the USPTO . Additional information on AI, including USPTO guidance, can be found on the USPTO  

Under the strategy, the USPTO will monitor emerging AI-related matters and contemplate how to encourage innovations relating to AI technology. The USPTO may endorse the development of judicial precedents and legislation that promote both AI innovation. For example, the USPTO may back judicial decisions that would encourage innovation for AI-generated prior art and AI-assisted inventions. In addition, improvements in generative AI may allow AI systems to play a greater role in the inventive process, possibly contributing in a manner that resemble human inventors. In addition to inventorship, AI may also impact other patent-related issues, such as subject matter eligibility, obviousness, enablement and written description. The USPTO will study new developments that expand AI’s capabilities, with the goal of providing guidance and resources to effectively execute these policies and practices. To that end, the USPTO has indicate it will engage with the courts, Congress and what USPTO calls domestic and international partners.

Important Considerations:

This announcement by the USPTO is significant because it provides the steps the USPTO will be taking to leverage AI and AI developments internally, as well as for the public. The announcement should put companies on notice that there will be some opportunity to participate in the process. Considering that the USPTO has indicated it plans on engaging the courts and Congress, it behooves companies that believe they will be strongly affected by AI developments and AI-related patents to consider developing their own strategy. In addition, companies might consider forming their own working groups to create a unified strategy that may represent a number of companies that do a significant amount of AI-related patent application filings.

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is a partner in Manatt, Phelps and Phillip’s Intellectual Property Protection and Enforcement practice and is the author of Patent Prosecution: Law, Practice, and Procedure, 2024 Edition, and Constructing and Deconstructing Patents (2d Edition 2016).