Patent FAQs
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We are receiving increasing numbers of enquiries from inventors and companies who have worked on their invention disclosure using general purpose Artificial Intelligence (AI) products prior to contacting a patent attorney. Generally, our advice at the present time is not to do this, and this article explains why, and includes some suggestions as to where AI may be useful.
A major concern is that there is a risk that inputting an invention into AI tools may constitute public disclosure of the invention, preventing a later-filed patent from being validly obtained. In UK law, it is relevant whether the AI tool terms of business accept an obligation of confidence. The personal accounts of many major AI tools do not accept this obligation, including paid personal accounts, although many enterprise tools do. (Commercial tools for patent attorneys to use generally address this issue carefully).
A related risk is that what you input into AI, and advice you receive from AI, might not be covered by legal professional privilege (the right to withhold disclosure of legal advice which you have received in the event of a dispute).
More practically, what we need to receive from inventors is the invention in their own words. If we are sent a document which has been prepared using a large language model (LLM) AI it is difficult for us to determine what came from the inventor and what was generated by AI (or even copied by AI from other patents). It is important that patent applications provide an enabling disclosure of the invention and are framed accurately and in good faith; AI-generated content increases the risk of errors creeping in. Of course, you may feel that you can carefully review technical output from a large language model, which would make it useful for preparing a description of how to carry out an invention. AI tools can be asked to prepare line drawings in a format suitable for patent applications (we prefer to receive them clean, without numbering, so that we can add our own numbering).
Furthermore, it can in practice take us longer to work from the product of an AI than starting from a focused discussion of the invention and its key features by the inventor, backed up with some relevant description and drawings. It takes us time to deconstruct what our client has done from what has been added by AI. AI may add features which are known and, as a result, obscure the real invention or add irrelevant material, which can increase costs without benefit.
There is also a legal risk that it is later found that the invention for which a patent is granted was made by, or in combination with, a non-human AI. At the present time, inventors must be human. This presents additional risks which could lead to invalid patent rights.
There is no current legal requirement in the UK to declare that a patent application includes text produced by AI but it is possible such requirements may arise in the future.
Therefore, we do generally advise against using general purpose AI tools. If you do, be sure to use enterprise tools, ideally those being created specifically for the purpose, and only after checking their confidentiality terms. Rather than inputting information to AI, if you send the same information to us, we can help you get the best possible IP protection in the most cost-effective way.
Author: Alistair Hindle February 2026