From your smartphone which probably is buzzing right now with notifications to almost every other device that you use on a daily basis, artificial intelligence (AI) is controlling a lot of content that you are exposed to. Have you ever had this weird coincidence of stumbling upon an advertisement on a social networking website regarding something you have been searching for online? Well, that’s neither a coincidence nor anything devious, it is the new age technology that somehow detects what you read and search online and connects you with businesses that offer relevant products and services. Such is the power of AI. However, do you know that artificial intelligence and intellectual property are coming together? Yes, just like several other industries, AI is empowering the IP industry too. Let’s understand its application and challenges.
AI – Understanding The Application
Before we can get down to talk about how intellectual property is all set to evolve with AI, it is crucial to first understand what this technology is capable of. Scanning through and manipulating huge databases was a colossal challenge before AI came into existence. With machine learning, artificial intelligence helped simplify several day-to-day tasks. Features like expeditious pattern recognition and offering optimized and reliable solutions made this technology a force to reckon with. As we are living and breathing in the era of big data, AI has helped take real-time decisions for age-old challenges.
AI & IP – Understanding The Advantages
The usage of huge volumes of data is the reason why getting intellectual property rights for the development of artificial intelligence technologies is a far-fetched dream. However, AI does have applications in the realm of intellectual property. The administrative tasks pertaining to IP are extremely risky and complicated. Corporate IP departments and law firms have to often go through huge volumes of databases spread across several jurisdictions and pertaining to numerous different products. This process is slow and requires a lot of manual labor with a significant amount of scope for making an error.
If an organization will apply for a patent to attain protection against competitors, who might copy their product or technology, agents from different parts of the world will have to come together to process the requirement. Agents in different countries will process the relevant paperwork in different languages. The fact that so many people are involved in processing such huge quantities of data, there’s a lot of probability of errors surfacing before or after the project is finished. The data isn’t just scanned and assessed but translated into multiple languages, which is why the probability of processing errors is extremely high.
Now, imagine working on numerous patents and dealing with errors in different projects. Exhausting? Yes, it certainly is but despite all this intellectual property is one of the most prized possession that any organization can gain ownership of. Since it matters so much for an organization to have one, the stakes are also high. A single error in gathering, assessing, and analyzing data can cost billions of dollars to an organization. As per a report generated by World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), approximately 25% of patent information is incorrect. This is why the risk is both evident and possible.
Apart from all this, the manual labor involved in analyzing and inputting data and analyzing it incurs a significant cost, which is why automation is considered both efficient and economical. Doing so will also help the IP experts focus on strategic issues that are crucial for the overall success of the project. Artificial intelligence for intellectual property issues can be a revolutionary technology, just like it has proved to be in several aspects of our day-to-day lives. AI is extremely efficient when it comes to dealing with complicated sets of databases in huge volumes and it is a lot more accurate than the traditional system.
Once data is quickly and precisely analyzed to attain reliable results, IP experts can play a more strategic role in the development of the organization by uncovering valuable insights that predict the overall performance. They can also gain a better understanding of the solutions that are required to shape a better future when it comes to the success of an organization. Deploying artificial intelligence for managing intellectual property rights can help shift the focus of IP experts from mundane issues to what matters more.
By automating data submission and making sure that every IP item has a unique identifier, correspondences between IP agents and patent offices all across the world can be simplified and made more productive. Doing so will enhance the accuracy levels, reduce the likelihood of errors, and multiply the overall efficiency drastically.
What Are The Challenges?
Intellectual property protection services can greatly improve with the application of AI tools and systems but we shouldn’t forget the application challenges. Adding AI capacity to IP offices across the globe isn’t easy. Despite AI being around for quite some time, hiring professionals with relevant knowledge and training is still a huge task. This needs to be considered, especially when you are looking forward to developing small in-house units that have access to a small amount of data. The whole point of deploying this technology is gaining access to and analyzing huge volumes of databases for attaining reliable outputs. This is why the development and deployment of AI in big law firms that have access to huge data volumes makes more sense. However, the IP industry has generally offered open access to organizations for patents and IP registrations. Smaller organizations that wish to operate with AI-enabled tools can use this data to overcome the existing challenge of not having enough data. However, to do so, it is crucial to emphasize more on coordination and integration.
Existing AI Tools By WIPO
The World Intellectual Property Office has developed and launched a couple of AI-powered tools in the IP industry. Here are a few that you should be aware of.
Image Search Technology – This deep neural network is a state-of-the-art technology that leverages the classification data of figurative elements to recognize the connection between shapes and colors of distinctive signs. You must be aware that a trademark is offered to colors like tiffany blue and shapes like the Twitter logo, which is exactly why artificial intelligence in intellectual property is such a ground-breaking discovery. This free tool can be easily accessed via the WIPO Global Brand Database.
IPCCAT – The International Patent Classification-CAT developed by WIPO aims to categorize the documents of patent registration as per the patent classification practices of the previously registered patents. Neural network technologies help examine various IPOs classifying relevant patents into technical units as per classes, sub-classes, and groups of International Patent Classification. Apart from this, this technology is also deployed for the extraction, analysis, and review of documents with pre-selected patterns. Furthermore, it can also be applied to other areas like trademarks.
WIPO Translate – You can get this free translation tool on PATENTSCOPE. This technology is extremely accurate as it can enhance complicated neural networks to generate patent document translations in as many as 10 different languages. It offers easy access to IP professionals, various national authorities, and IPOs that require translations. This tool removes language barriers, disseminates knowledge, and promotes innovation while reducing the overall operational cost.
Conclusion
Artificial intelligence in the intellectual property industry has managed to make a huge impact. Simplifying operations, reducing cost, and enhancing efficiency while bridging the language gap, AI has helped achieve reliable results for tasks like patent and trademark registration. This technology has especially helped IP professionals get rid of the workaday data analysis that was both time-consuming and unproductive. With AI, professionals can shift focus towards strategic decisions that can empower their organization. However, the real opportunity that AI has presented IP professionals with is a way to get insights from inaccessibly huge volumes of impenetrable data. Such insights have helped organizations move to new markets and avenues of success and unsurmountable profits that were just a dream before the introduction of AI.
However, every technology has certain drawbacks that need to be dealt with in order to get benefited from it. This is where the challenge begins for IP professionals, who have to not only get acquainted with the latest developments but also deal with the associated complexities head-on. Artificial intelligence and intellectual property are a great combination, but whether or not it will work for your organization depends on several factors. So before you plan to invest in this technology for the IP department in your organization, it is wise to go ahead and research the challenges relevant to today’s business landscape. Doing so will help avoid getting into partnerships and deals that don’t match your requirement. AI is an evolutionary technology that carries a lot of hope for the future of the business realm, and as of now, it has been the backbone of several innovations. That being said, whether or not your business’s IP department needs it is a question that requires extensive research. So do consult experts before you take any such decision.
