The practice of patent law, specifically preparing patent applications and prosecuting
them before the US Patent & Trademark Office, has evolved dramatically over the past several
years. What was once viewed as purely bespoke work that could only be performed by a skilled
patent attorney is now being granularized, delegated, and automated. Natural language
processing (NLP), often driven by AI, is one of the most important technologies enabling a
cornucopia of new “PatentTech” tools. With patent application preparation, NLP and natural
language generation (NLG) can now be leveraged to generate substantial document portions
based on only a few pages written by a patent attorney.
It is not only technology driving these advancements, but really a perfect storm of industry
trends including rising annual patent filings, shrinking numbers in early-career patent
practitioners, and falling market rates for patent legal work. In this regard, patent prosecutors
commonly face budget pressures from their clients to produce patent applications at pricing that
remains unchanged for decades. PatentTech tools look to be a promising opportunity for patent
prosecutors to produce higher quality work product while lowering their cost, which is a win for
both the patent applicant and the patent prosecutors. PatentTech tools are not without their
drawbacks, but if they continue to evolve they will likely be a vital tool in the toolbelt of the
leading edge patent prosecutors who adopt them to produce better, faster, and less costly
results for their clients.