For over a decade, the patent eligibility of software and artificial intelligence has been haunted by the vague requirement of Alice Corp.: to demonstrate that a claim contains "something more" than an abstract idea. On December 4, 2025, USPTO Director John A. Squires provided the definitive answer to what that "something more" actually looks like, codifying the recent decision in In re Desjardins as the binding framework for the future of AI prosecution.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) published its Revised Inventorship Guidance for AI-Assisted Inventions on November 28, 2025, immediately rescinding in its entirety the guidance issued under the previous administration, and creating uncertainty concerning the patentability of at least some AI-assisted inventions. 

The question practitioners face is not whether to adopt AI, but how to adopt it in ways that acknowledge its fundamental limitations while capturing genuine value—and the answer lies in modular prompting, a framework for building reliable, repeatable workflows that constrain AI’s outputs and improve consistency across time.