AI-powered tools to accelerate the IP examining work

The patent office is one of the most important stakeholders in the patent ecosystem. Its role is to make sure that inventors get their fair share of intellectual property rights in an efficient and accurate manner. As such, it is no surprise that the patent office is under constant pressure to improve its efficiency and productivity. This can be done through the use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools, which are already being implemented by some offices around the world. However, it's important that these tools don't replace examiners but instead help them do their jobs better—and make them more efficient at granting patents while maintaining quality assurance standards. Patent offices are under constant pressure to improve their efficiency and productivity. As such, it’s no surprise that the use of AI tools is being implemented by some offices around the world.

Challenges in Patent Offices

As a patent examiner, you are responsible for examining and assessing the validity of application work that is submitted to you. You will be dealing with many patents in your career, but there's a limit to how much you can handle at once.

Patent office backlogs and budget constraints mean that it can take several months or even years for an application to be reviewed by an examiner. During this time, the applicant may have been using or selling their invention without knowing if they'll get a patent or not. This can cause legal problems down the road when someone else patents something similar (the USPTO calls this “interference”).

Even once an application gets assigned to an examiner, there's no guarantee that they're up-to-date on all current technologies—and even if they are well versed in tech trends, it's still difficult for them to keep up with everything happening across multiple fields at once.

There are a number of challenges that a patent office may face in the IP examination process. One major challenge is the sheer volume of applications that a patent office may receive, which can make it difficult to thoroughly and accurately review each one in a timely manner. Another challenge is the complexity of many IP applications, which can require specialized knowledge and expertise to properly evaluate. Additionally, the IP examination process can be subject to legal and regulatory constraints, which can further complicate the work of patent examiners. Finally, the IP landscape is constantly changing and evolving, which can make it difficult for a patent office to stay up-to-date with the latest developments and trends. These are just some of the challenges that a patent office may face in the IP examining pipeline.

The use of AI in Patent Offices

AI can help with the patent office’s workload. For example, it can help find relevant information. AI can also be used to make the patent search process faster and more efficient by eliminating certain searches as unnecessary. In addition, AI can help with the patent application process by suggesting which sections of a document should be rewritten or if other forms are necessary, thus reducing human error in this important stage of the application process. Finally, AI may even assist with the examination process by allowing examiners to focus their efforts on those applications that truly require a human touch rather than those which might be better served by automated scrutiny.

As with any new technology, there are risks. Using AI for patent applications may increase the likelihood of mistakes being made during the patent application process. For example, an AI system could misidentify a relevant prior art reference or miss some important information from a search. This can lead to rejections on these grounds by an examiner who then has to make further inquiries before deciding whether to accept or reject a patent application.

Particularly, AI can be used to quickly and accurately search through large numbers of patents to identify prior art, which is information that has already been made available to the public and may affect the novelty and inventiveness of a new invention. This can save patent examiners a significant amount of time, as they no longer have to manually search through large numbers of patents to find relevant prior art.?

Additionally, AI can be used to assist with the initial evaluation of a patent application. This could involve using natural language processing to automatically extract key information from the application, such as the invention's technical details and claimed features. This information can then be used by the patent examiner to quickly assess the potential novelty and inventiveness of the invention.

Furthermore, AI can be used to help identify potential issues with a patent application, such as clarity of language or potential conflicts with existing patents. This can help patent examiners identify and address any potential issues with an application before it is approved, improving the quality of the patent process overall.

Overall, the use of AI in patent offices can help reduce the workload of patent examiners by automating routine tasks, such as searching for prior art and extracting key information from patent applications. This can free up patent examiners to focus on more complex and challenging tasks, such as evaluating the novelty and inventiveness of inventions.

The ripple effect of AI tools on each stage of examination

AI will help examiners with more accurate, faster and more consistent classification (in general). We’re already seeing this in the form of machine learning-based systems that can identify specific types of content or be trained to classify certain types of documents (e.g., a text document) automatically.

AI will help examiners with more accurate, faster and more consistent searching (i.e. for relevant patents). Search engines have been improving over time based on what users do when they use them; as more people search for particular topics or terms, search engines will be able to understand those topics better than ever before. AI is being used by some companies already to help automate patent searches across multiple platforms.

AI may also make it easier for examiners to find relevant prior art—the intersection between new technologies and existing ones—and thus ensure an application is not rejected due to lack of novelty or obviousness.

A human touch is still needed

While AI can often help, a human touch is still needed. Patent examiners will be able to focus on the more complicated cases, leaving the simpler issues for AI to handle. This will allow examiners to spend more time talking with inventors about their inventions and how they work—something that’s not just important for patent filing, but also for ensuring that patents are granted appropriately in the first place so they aren’t rejected later on during litigation.

A recent study by the USPTO found that examiners spend about half of their time on administrative tasks, such as reviewing documents and communicating with applicants. The rest of their time is spent on substantive work, such as reviewing applications for novelty or non-obviousness. Automating some of these administrative tasks could free up examiners to focus more on substantive patent issues.

Automating the patent application process is just one of many ways researchers are using AI to improve patent quality.

Artificial intelligence will not replace patent examiners but will help them do their jobs better.

While the use of AI may be a cause for concern, it should not be thought of as a replacement for human intelligence. Rather, AI will help patent examiners do their jobs better: by providing insights into how similar cases have been handled in the past, or by presenting them with a list of possible solutions to consider at every step in the examination process. This frees up time that would otherwise be spent on routine tasks so that examiners can focus on more complex cases and contribute more to innovation in our economy.

It is also important to recognize that the use of AI will not prevent patent examiners from making their own decisions about the patentability of inventions. In fact, it could make them better able to do so by providing them with more information.

Conclusion

As we have seen, AI tools can help both patent examiners and applicants do their jobs much more efficiently. But this is just the beginning. We can expect to see many more tools emerge in the future, helping with different stages of patent examination and ultimately making the patent process more efficient and accessible. As we move forward, we must also consider the ethical implications of AI. For example, what happens if a machine learning algorithm makes a mistake that leads to an unwarranted rejection? How do we ensure that patent examiners are not biased against certain types of inventions because they are unfamiliar with them? These are just some of the questions we will have to grapple with as AI becomes more prevalent in the patent world.

About The Adjacent Possible

Our company,?The Adjacent Possible,?is about creating?positive sum games. We do this by leveraging technology and creativity. Our unique contribution to the ecosystems we collaborate with is organic growth. We are an Open Innovation Studio and we enable the business of the future. We are The Adjacent Possible.