Still, plenty of legal experts think that co-crediting AIs as inventors is logical and necessary. On LinkedIn, Professor Mark Lemley from Stanford Law School accused the USPTO of “assuming that ignoring AI conception somehow takes care of the problem” when it does not.

“In practice, I suspect this means applicants will lie about who made AI-generated inventions, the PTO will let them, and those patents will be in trouble if and when they are enforced in court,” Lemley said.