Emerging Trends in Intellectual Property: What Scientists Need to Know

By Lexus Tatge, Director of IP Education

Innovation drives progress, but innovation without protection risks being lost to the wind—or, worse, taken without credit or reward to its initial inventor. We all have probably read a bioRxiv paper or two and thought "hmm we're being scooped…" – it's the same thing. Intellectual property (IP) sits at the core of this dynamic, acting as both a shield and a tool for fostering creativity. The biomedical sciences – where discoveries often take years of painstaking work, multiple graduate students, and a couple rejected grants – hold the potential to save lives. Understanding how to protect these innovations is critical, yet IP isn't static; it evolves in response to societal needs, technological advances, knowledge tipping-points, and global challenges, even in as little time as a Ph.D.

Today, IP faces its own wave of innovation: artificial intelligence is pushing the boundaries of what inventors—and algorithms—can achieve, while international efforts to harmonize patent laws are reshaping how scientists protect their work across borders. Now, there are lots of topics to pick when it comes to emerging technologies in the IP space, but for what this blog is for, I felt best to split my time between writing about AI and how to navigate patenting globally for those of us that have, will have, or have had collaborations with researchers in other countries. Frankly, for modern biomedical inventors, navigating AI and other countries patenting systems' is essential. Whether you're filing patents, collaborating globally, or simply working on cutting-edge discoveries, staying informed about emerging trends in IP ensures that your contributions to science remain impactful and hopefully protected.

In this post, I'll dive into two key areas shaping the future of intellectual property: the rise of AI in research and its implications for inventorship, and the push for global harmonization of patent laws. Together, these forces are redefining how science and law intersect—and why understanding this evolving landscape matters for scientists everywhere.

AI-Driven Inventions: Navigating a New Frontier

When I started my Ph.D. in 2019, my goal was to deorphanize a nuclear hormone receptor. If that sounds niche, that's because it was. I spent weeks modeling potential ligands to bind to the receptor's binding pocket. At the time, protein structure prediction felt like solving a puzzle with missing pieces. The best I could do was guesstimate the structure of the protein based on analogous human proteins.

Fast forward to 2021: AlphaFold revolutionized the game, providing protein structure predictions with confidence levels that were unthinkable a few years prior. Today, tools like AlphaFold even allow ligand-protein and protein-protein interactions to be predicted with such ease that it feels like cheating. I can only imagine that this is what scientists felt like when a thermocycler was invented, instead of manually moving tubes from 95 degrees to 65 degrees, and back up to 72 degrees for 30 rounds of DNA amplification.

But with AI advancing so rapidly, the intersection of science and IP is entering murky territory. How do you assign inventorship when an algorithm contributes to a discovery? Or taking a bigger step back, ChatGPT for instance, what if AI drafts sections of your manuscript, helps summarize your results, or even simply makes grammatical edits? Scientists now face a landscape where technology itself may become a collaborator.

Recent debates surrounding AI inventorship challenge traditional IP laws, which have always presumed human inventors. For biomedical researchers, staying informed about these discussions is essential. How do you protect your contributions in a field where AI plays such a prominent role? As the lines blur between human ingenuity and machine assistance, understanding the implications for patents, credit, and authorship is crucial. If you are interested in reading more on how AI is playing a role in authorship, check out the links at the bottom of the post!

Global Harmonization and Challenges

Now, let's zoom out. If you've ever collaborated with researchers across the globe, you know that, or can assume that, navigating international IP protections is far from straightforward. Each country has its own rules, creating a patchwork system that inventors must navigate. Efforts to harmonize these laws aim to simplify protections, particularly for discoveries with global applications. The America Invents Act (AIA), passed in 2011, marked a significant step in this direction by shifting the U.S. patent system from a "first-to-invent" to a "first-to-file" approach, aligning with much of the world. While this change simplified certain processes, it also introduced challenges for smaller labs and individual inventors, where resources for rapid filings may be limited.

Still, global harmonization remains a work in progress. Outside of "first-to-file" being something that has changed in the last 15 years – something patent professionals still navigate based on patents issued pre-AIA – another interesting point to think about if you are doing research across borders or want to secure a patent in another country is how other countries define "novelty" and "non obviousness." The definitions of "novelty" and "non-obviousness" differ between countries, creating uncertainty for inventors filing internationally. For example, comparing the US to the EU:

US: Here we base non-obviousness on whether a "Person Having Ordinary Skill In The Art (PHOSITA)" could predict the invention. So, suppose a researcher files a patent for a drug formulation that combines two known drugs, A and B, to treat a specific disease. In the U.S., if prior art suggests that both drugs are effective against the same condition and a skilled person would likely combine them, the invention may be deemed obvious and therefore could potentially be rejected.

In the EU: From what I have gathered on my very very limited knowledge of EU patenting, they use a "problem-solving" approach to non-obviousness. First, they determine the closest known prior art, then identify the technical problem trying to be solved, then assess whether the solution would be obvious. I know, it seems pretty similar to how the US evaluates patents but let's take the example from above but with an EU lens. The European Patent Office (EPO) might find the patent application above about the drug combination non-obvious if the inventor demonstrates that the combination unexpectedly enhances efficacy or reduces side effects, and there is no prior art suggesting such a synergistic effect. Even if a skilled person could technically combine the two drugs, the lack of a clear motivation to do so for that specific benefit might make it patentable in the EU.

Efforts to harmonize IP laws, such as first-to-file or perhaps the definition of non-obviousness, aim to reduce these barriers, fostering global collaboration and ensuring equitable world-wide protections for inventors. For scientists, this means fewer bureaucratic headaches and more time to focus on discovery.

To summarize:

Intellectual property serves as the backbone of innovation, ensuring that groundbreaking discoveries are protected, credited, and translated into real-world impact. For biomedical researchers, understanding and navigating this evolving landscape is no longer an optional skill—it is a vital component of the scientific process.

From the rise of artificial intelligence in research to ongoing efforts in global patent harmonization, the world of IP is undergoing profound transformations, even in just the last four years. AI has become not only a powerful tool but also a potential collaborator, raising critical questions about inventorship and credit. Meanwhile, international harmonization efforts offer the promise of simplified protections, but challenges such as differing standards for non-obviousness continue to complicate cross-border patentability.

By staying informed about these trends, scientists can better protect their innovations while contributing to a system that values creativity and collaboration. Whether you're exploring the implications of AI or working on discoveries with global relevance, understanding intellectual property ensures that your contributions will advance science and reach the people who need them most.

As science pushes the boundaries of possibility, IP must adapt to protect and promote those innovations. For researchers, engaging with this dynamic intersection of science and law is not just about protecting the past—it's about shaping the future.

PS - If you are reading this before February 4th, 2025, biotech club and I are hosting a seminar with the Office of Technology Development and would love for everyone to join. The seminar is "Unlocking Innovation: Patents & Careers in Technology Transfer" with Drs. Hartman, Casey, and Guo. February 4th from 3pm to 4pm in NA7.206. If you like protecting your brain's ideas, and also like coffee and pastries, I'd highly recommend coming!

Links:

Nature's Policies on AI authorship: https://www.nature.com/nature-portfolio/editorial-policies/ai 

AlphaFold key publication: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03819-2 

EPO versus USPTO on obviousness: https://ipwatchdog.com/2024/08/27/european-patent-applications-primer-u-s-practitioners-need-know/id=180440/ 

Disclosure: AI was used for grammatical edits.