Congress for the terms “inventor” and “joint inventor” within the Patent Act reference an “individual” or “individuals.” 35 U.S.C. §§ 100(f)–(g). Congress used the same term—“individual”—in other significant provisions of the Patent Act which reference an “inventor,” including requiring that “each individual who is the inventor or a joint inventor” execute an oath or declaration, and permitting a substitute statement in lieu of the oath or declaration “with respect to any individual who” meets the requirements. Id. § 115(a)(1). Similarly, the oath or declaration must contain a statement that “such individual believes himself or herself to be the original inventor or joint inventor of [the] claimed invention.” Id. § 115(b)(2). Accordingly, the issue of whether an artificial intelligence machine can be an “inventor” turns on the plain meaning of the statutory term “individual.”
The Supreme Court recently conducted a statutory construction analysis regarding Congress’s use of the term “individual” in the Torture Victim Protection Act (“TVPA”), ultimately concluding that “[t]he ordinary meaning of the word, fortified by its statutory context,” referred to a “natural person[ ].” Mohamad v. Palestinian Auth., 566 U.S. 449, 453–54, 132 S.Ct. 1702, 182 L.Ed.2d 720 (2012). Although the TVPA and Patent Act concern different subject matter, the Supreme Court’s statutory analysis of the term “individual” remains applicable here. “Because the [Patent Act] does not define the term ‘individual,’ we look first to the word’s ordinary meaning.” Id. at 454, 132 S.Ct. 1702. When used “[a]s a noun, ‘individual’ ordinarily means ‘[a] human being, a person.’ ” Id. (quoting 7 Oxford English Dictionary 880 (2d ed. 1989)) (also citing Random House Dictionary of the English Language 974 (2d ed. 1987) (“a person”); Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 1152 (1986) (“a particular person”)). As the Supreme Court recognized, these definitions accord with “how we use the word in everyday parlance”:
We say “the individual went to the store,” “the individual left the room,” and “the individual took the car,” each time referring unmistakably to a natural person. And no one, we hazard to guess, refers in normal parlance to an organization as an “individual.” Evidencing that common usage, this Court routinely uses “individual” to denote a natural person, and in particular to distinguish between a natural person and a corporation.
Id. Similarly, the Patent Act uses the term “individual” as a noun, and therefore “ ‘individual’ ordinarily means ‘[a] human being, a person.’ ” Id. at 454, 132 S.Ct. 1702. As in Mohamad, this definition is consistent with the ordinary usage of the term “individual” to refer to a human being, as artificial intelligence machines or systems are not normally referred to as “individuals” in ordinary parlance.
Relying on the Dictionary Act’s denotation of “individual” as “distinct from the list of artificial entities that precedes it,” the Supreme Court explained that “Congress does not, in the ordinary comse, employ the word any differently” from its common usage. Id. (citing 1 U.S.C. § 1). The Dictionary Act applies to all congressional enactments, and similarly applies to the Patent Act. See Ngiraingas v. Sanchez, 495 U.S. 182, 190, 110 S.Ct. 1737, 109 L.Ed.2d 163 (1990) (holding that the Dictionary Act “supplied[s] rules of construction for all legislation”). Notably, although “Congress remains free, as always, to give the word a broader or different meaning …. before we will assume it has done so, there must be some indication Congress intended such a result.” Moha-
