The Supreme Court has not yet decided a case about artificial intelligence on the merits, but the Supreme Court’s rulings on AI to date come through two channels: cert denials that let stand lower-court holdings that AI cannot be a patent inventor or a copyright author, and the Chief Justice’s 2023 Year-End Report warning judges and lawyers about AI in the courtroom. Everything else — sanctions for fake citations, disclosure orders, ethics opinions, and proposed evidence rules — is happening in the lower federal courts and rulemaking committees, not at One First Street.
AI Cannot Be Named as a Patent Inventor
Stephen Thaler tried to list his AI system, DABUS, as the sole inventor on two patent applications. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office refused. The Federal Circuit affirmed, holding that “the Patent Act requires an ‘inventor’ to be a natural person.”1United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Thaler v. Vidal, No. 21-2347 The court read 35 U.S.C. § 100(f), which defines an “inventor” as “the individual or, if a joint invention, the individuals collectively who invented or discovered the subject matter of the invention,” to mean a human being.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 35 USC 100 – Definitions
Thaler petitioned the Supreme Court. On April 24, 2023, the Court denied certiorari without comment, leaving the Federal Circuit ruling untouched.3Supreme Court of the United States. Docket No. 22-919, Thaler v. Vidal A cert denial is not a decision on the merits. As a practical matter, though, the result is the current rule: an AI system cannot be named as an inventor on a U.S. patent. A human must be identified as the person who conceived the invention, even where AI played a significant role.
AI Cannot Be Named as a Copyright Author
Thaler ran the same argument through copyright law, asking the Copyright Office to register a visual artwork generated by his Creativity Machine and to list the AI as sole author. The Office refused. The district court and the D.C. Circuit both upheld that refusal. In March 2025, the D.C. Circuit held that “the Copyright Act of 1976 requires all eligible work to be authored in the first instance by a human being,” and because the Creativity Machine is not human, “the Copyright Office appropriately denied Dr. Thaler’s application.”4U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Thaler v. Perlmutter, No. 23-5233
On March 2, 2026, the Supreme Court denied certiorari in Thaler v. Perlmutter. The lower court’s holding stands. Copyright protection under 17 U.S.C. § 102 extends to “original works of authorship,” and the courts have read that phrase to require a human creator.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 102 – Subject Matter of Copyright: In General
That does not put every work involving AI out of reach. The Copyright Office issued registration guidance in March 2023 explaining that works containing AI-generated material are evaluated case by case, and the central question is whether “the traditional elements of authorship in the work were actually conceived and executed not by man but by a machine.” Where a human selects or arranges AI-generated material in a sufficiently creative way, or modifies AI output enough to meet the originality standard, the resulting work can qualify for registration.6Federal Register. Copyright Registration Guidance: Works Containing Material Generated by Artificial Intelligence Typing a prompt and accepting the raw output will not clear that bar. Substantial editing, selection, and arrangement of AI-generated elements might.
Chief Justice Roberts’ 2023 Year-End Report
The Supreme Court’s most direct public statement on AI is not an opinion. It is Chief Justice John Roberts’ 2023 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary, which he devoted almost entirely to artificial intelligence. Roberts acknowledged the “breathless predictions about the future of Artificial Intelligence” and said he was confident judges are not about to become obsolete, though technology will “continue to transform our work.”7Supreme Court of the United States. 2023 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary
He named the problem of AI “hallucinations” directly. One prominent AI application, he wrote, “made headlines this year for a shortcoming known as ‘hallucination,’ which caused the lawyers using the application to submit briefs with citations to non-existent cases,” adding parenthetically that this is “always a bad idea.”7Supreme Court of the United States. 2023 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary Roberts also flagged the risk of entering confidential information into AI tools, which can compromise attorney-client privilege, and raised due process and bias concerns about AI use in criminal cases to assess flight risk or recidivism.
The through-line was accountability. Technology may change the tools lawyers use, but responsibility for the accuracy of every filing rests on the human who signs it. Roberts’ 2024 Year-End Report did not revisit AI at length, though he reiterated that “machines will never fully replace human judges.”
What the Court’s Position Means for Lawyers Right Now
Because the Supreme Court has not issued a merits ruling on AI, the working rules for lawyers come from the existing federal rules, from lower-court sanctions, and from bar guidance. All three point the same direction: you own what you file.
Rule 11 Applies to AI-Assisted Filings
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11 requires every attorney who signs a filing to certify that its legal contentions are “warranted by existing law” and that its factual assertions “have evidentiary support.” That obligation existed before generative AI, and courts have applied it in full to AI-assisted work. A Rule 11 sanction “must be limited to what suffices to deter repetition of the conduct or comparable conduct by others similarly situated,” and can include monetary penalties, payment of the opposing party’s attorney’s fees, or nonmonetary directives such as mandatory training. Firms are jointly responsible for violations by their partners, associates, or employees absent exceptional circumstances.8Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 11 – Signing Pleadings, Motions, and Other Papers
The Mata v. Avianca Sanction
The case that made the point concrete was Mata v. Avianca in 2023. An attorney used ChatGPT to research a personal injury matter and submitted a brief filled with citations to cases that did not exist. When the court raised questions, the attorney went back to ChatGPT, which assured him the cases were real. He then filed an affirmation doubling down on the fabricated citations. The court found the attorneys had acted with subjective bad faith, imposed a $5,000 penalty, and ordered them to send copies of the sanctions opinion to every judge whose name had been falsely attached to a fabricated decision. The fine was modest. The reputational damage was not, and later courts have treated the case as a reference point.
Standing Orders and AI Disclosure
No single nationwide rule requires AI disclosure in federal court filings. Individual federal judges have filled the gap with standing orders that require lawyers to certify whether generative AI was used to draft any part of a submission. Most orders share a few elements: identify the tool used, specify which portions of the filing it helped produce, and confirm that a human reviewed every citation and factual assertion. Where an order requires certification, it typically appears near the signature block and is submitted through the Case Management/Electronic Case Files (CM/ECF) system.9United States Courts. Electronic Filing (CM/ECF) Before you file, check whether the presiding judge has a standing order on AI. The absence of an order does not lower the accuracy obligation; it only makes disclosure voluntary.
ABA Formal Opinion 512
The American Bar Association issued Formal Opinion 512 on July 29, 2024, applying the existing Model Rules of Professional Conduct to generative AI. Competence under Model Rule 1.1 requires lawyers to understand the capabilities and limitations of the AI tools they use and to keep that understanding current. Confidentiality under Model Rule 1.6 requires knowing how a tool processes data and ensuring client information entered into it is not disclosed to third parties or used to train the system; boilerplate consent language in engagement letters will not satisfy informed consent. Supervision duties extend to AI outputs the way they extend to work by junior associates. And the duty of candor toward the tribunal requires review of every AI-generated citation and legal argument before filing, with correction of any hallucinated authorities or misstated law.
AI-Generated Evidence: Not Yet Decided
One area where the Supreme Court has not weighed in, and where the rules themselves are still being written, is the admissibility of AI-generated evidence. Federal Rule of Evidence 901 currently requires a party offering evidence to show it is “genuine and what the proponent claims it to be,” Rule 403 allows exclusion where the potential to mislead the jury substantially outweighs value, and Rule 702 governs expert testimony reliability. The Advisory Committee on Evidence Rules is working on two proposed amendments: a Rule 901(c) procedure aimed at suspected deepfakes and a new Rule 707 that would require machine-generated evidence offered without an expert witness to satisfy the same reliability standards as expert testimony.10United States Courts. Advisory Committee on Evidence Rules – Hearing on Proposed Rule 707 The committee held a hearing on Rule 707 in January 2026. If the amendments move forward on their current schedule, the earliest effective date would be December 1, 2027. Until then, judges apply the existing rules, and outcomes vary by court.