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Stephen Thaler (Thaler) develops and runs AI systems that generate potential inventions. Id. at 2. In July 2019, he filed two patent applications with the PTO on which he listed an AI system as the sole inventor. Id. at 3. Thaler represented that he did not contribute to the conception of these inventions and that any person having skill in the art could have taken the AI system's output and reduced the ideas in the applications to practice. Id. He also submitted the following documents relevant to inventorship: 1) a sworn oath on behalf of the AI system's behalf to satisfy 35 U.S.C. §115's requirement; 2) a supplemental "Statement on Inventorship" explanation that the AI system is a "particular type of connectionist artificial intelligence"; and 3) an assignment purporting to grant himself all of the AI system's rights as an inventor. Id. at 3-4.

The PTO concluded that both applications were incomplete because they lacked a valid inventor on the ground that "a machine does not qualify as an inventor." Id. at 4. Thaler sought reconsideration, which the PTO denied, on the same ground. Id. He then pursued judicial review of the PTO's final decisions, under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). Id. The parties agreed to have the district court adjudicate the challenge based on the administrative record developed before the PTO, and filed cross-motions for summary judgment. Id. After briefing and oral argument, the district court granted the PTO's motion and denied Thaler's request to reinstate his applications. Id. The district court ruled that an "inventor" under the Patent Act must be an "individual," and the plain meaning of "individual" as used in the statute is a natural person, which Thaler appealed. Id. at 4-5.