Legal Tech And Biotech Patents

Dietmar Hertsen of NLO writing for IAM looks at advances in legal technology especially those associated with patent landscaping and the use of AI systems for patent searching. Examples are given in the biotech field but the lessons are applicable to the entire field of patents.

The EPO is a key actor when it comes to AI-assisted searches. It has developed an in-house searching algorithm based on a number of open-source and proprietary software libraries, and trained in large part on an immense database of historical search results. This system is used for various tasks, including text and image-based prior art searches. Although the inner workings of this system are not publicly known, it is clear that the EPO is aware of the reputation of its search reports and monitors the quality of the AI-assisted searches closely.

The USPTO has developed a similar AI tool to search the prior art and even suggest better search strategies. After achieving promising results with its beta version in March 2020, it is now taking steps to use the tool on a broader scale.

Read the full article at the link below.