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IRI Podcast: What’s Happening with Patents and AI?

By NAM NewsroomOctober 16, 2026

Artificial intelligence is transforming nearly every industry and sector, and patent law is no exception.

What’s going on: On a recent episode of its podcast, “Innovation Ahead by IRI,” the Innovation Research Interchange—the NAM’s innovation division—spoke with two patent law experts from Duane Morris about the intersection of AI and patents.

  • The relationship between AI and patent law falls into three categories, said Dan Tarr, a partner in Duane Morris’ intellectual property group: patenting AI technology, using AI to develop inventions and using AI to assert or obtain inventions.
  • “AI is patentable,” Tarr told IRI Executive Director Lee Green, who hosted the episode. However, under the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s 2025 revised guidance, “only humans can be inventors,” meaning AI cannot be listed as an inventor on a patent application.
  • The key takeaway, Tarr said: “You really don’t [need to cite the use of AI on a patent] anymore.”

Fundamentally the same: From a legal standpoint, determining ownership of an invention developed with AI “[is] not fundamentally that different [from] what people would have thought about 10 years ago or 20 years ago,” said Brian Pandya, a partner in Duane Morris’ trial group.

  • For example, “If you disclose technology … to an AI [system] without proper security restrictions … that counts as a public disclosure,” he said. “So … the applications are new, the issues may be a little bit stickier … but fundamentally, they’re the same issues that we have been advising clients on and litigating” for years.

A caveat: Despite its benefits, AI requires careful human oversight, Tarr warned.

  • “AI … [is] a great tool, and it’s really allowing us to do a lot of analysis very quickly, [but] it’s just a tool,” Tarr said. “So, we don’t file anything that was put out by AI on its own. It’s always reviewed. … Even if you write in your prompt [and] do not hallucinate, AI will still hallucinate.”
  • Added Pandya, “AI is a people pleaser. So, it’s configured to give you answers that you want to hear. … [Y]ou have to be mindful [of] that … and you have to look at it critically and judge it accordingly.”

What’s next: While the administration is “very pro-AI,” Pandya said, “one area where we’re getting pressure to use AI is when it comes to the examination of patents.”

  • “[W]e will see greater use of AI models to go searching for prior art, which I think is a good thing because it will mean patents can issue more quickly and their patents will also be examined more rigorously.”