When AI designs a drug, who gets the credit?

Insilico Medicine touted a pulmonary fibrosis drug candidate as 'discovered by' its AI platform, but the patent filing names five humans and omits the AI entirely. US law requires an inventor to be a human 'individual'—a principle affirmed in the 2022 DABUS case. The core tension: if AI contributes more and humans less, patents could be challenged for listing the wrong inventors. The USPTO currently treats AI as a tool like a calculator and does not require disclosure. Insilico's CEO says human chemists still synthesize, modify, and test the molecules, so they get the credit. Attorney Ryan Abbott counters: if you ask Claude to cure cancer and it does, claiming you invented it feels wrong.

Why it matters: MIT Tech Review grounds the AI-inventorship debate in a concrete Insilico case with a named drug candidate and the DABUS precedent — not abstract hand-waving. Held at the featured threshold because it's a legal/policy explainer rather than a new breakthrough or data drop.