Imagine a pharmaceutical researcher in 2015 searching for new drug candidates to treat a rare disease. Through traditional methods, they might screen a few thousand compounds over several months, carefully evaluating each candidate’s potential based on known chemical properties and biological mechanisms. Fast forward to 2025: using modern AI tools, that same researcher can screen millions of compounds in days, with the AI system predicting binding affinities, potential side effects, and even suggesting novel molecular structures that human chemists might never have conceived. This dramatic expansion of capabilities raises a crucial question for patent law: Has the widespread adoption of AI tools fundamentally changed what constitutes “ordinary skill” in drug discovery?

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