Duties, and Who May Practise
The duty that catches people is not the duty to disclose. It is the separate duty to perform a reasonable inquiry, which reaches what a reasonable review would have surfaced rather than only what you were handed. The AI guidance is built on the same two duties, and creates no new ones.
Also here: who may sign for a foreign-domiciled applicant, and three 2024 rules on who may appear at all.
This is the layer a practitioner operates inside every day, and the one where the consequences attach to conduct rather than to claims.
The April 2024 AI guidance is best understood against that pair. It does not prohibit AI-assisted drafting and does not require disclosing that AI was used. It confirms the existing duties apply unchanged, and the signature certification is where they bite: a signature certifies a reasonable inquiry was made, whatever produced the draft.
The Duties, and Who Carries Them
| Duty | Stated in | Who it binds | In the authority's words |
|---|---|---|---|
| Disclosure | USPTO notice, 87 FR 45764 (July 2022), clarifying existing rules | Each individual associated with the filing and prosecution of an application | The duty of candor and good faith "includes the duty to disclose to the USPTO information material to the patentability of a claimed invention" |
| Reasonable inquiry | Same notice, restating 37 CFR 11.18(b) | "Each party submitting a paper to the USPTO" | "an additional duty to perform an inquiry that is reasonable under the circumstances, including reviewing documents to identify information that is material to the patentability of a claimed invention" |
| Verification of AI output | USPTO guidance, 89 FR 25609 (April 2024), applying existing rules | Whoever signs the paper | "human verification of the outputs of AI tools is necessary"; no general duty to disclose AI use is created |
| Personal signature | Electronic-signature rule, 89 FR 20321 (effective March 22, 2024) | The named signer | "The signer must personally make their own signature, regardless of what type of signature is used" |
| Representation by a registered practitioner | Final rule, 91 FR 13510 (effective July 20, 2026) | Applicants and patent owners "whose domicile is not located within the United States" | An ADS without the practitioner's signature is treated as a transmittal letter, so "inventorship will not be set nor will benefit or priority claims be effective" |
| Scope of practice | Design practitioner bar rule, 88 FR 78644 (effective January 2, 2024); PTAB appearance rule, 89 FR 82172 | Design-bar practitioners; counsel recognised pro hac vice | Design patent practitioners "would practice in design patent proceedings only"; those recognised pro hac vice "have a duty to inform the Board of subsequent" changes |
The Authorities
What These Pages Do Not Decide
- Whether particular information is material, or whether a specific inquiry was reasonable. Materiality is defined by reference to patentability, which makes it a legal conclusion.
- Whether any firm's AI practice complies, including ours.
- Whether a particular applicant must use a registered practitioner, or whether a filing is defective.
- Whether anyone is eligible for the design patent practitioner bar.
Educational, not legal advice. We publish this corpus with AI assistance, which is a reason for more care on the AI guidance page rather than less. It reports what the Office said; it does not present our own workflow, or anyone else's, as compliant.