Artificial intelligence tries intellectual property analysis to help new inventors.

IBM released a demonstration project in cooperation with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to test the artificial intelligence (AI)-driven intellectual property (IP) analysis tool, IBMIP Advisor(IP Consultant) demonstration system. This system combines the dialogue AI technology of IBM Watson Assistant and the content insight mining and navigation solution of IBM Watson Discovery. The system aims to help users discover and analyze relevant patent data more effectively, and to gain more time for strategic and high-value tasks.

Before applying for a patent, you need to know the relevant public information, such as currently held and similar patents and published patent applications, which are called prior art. When an inventor has an idea for a new product, the research around the existing technology can help you understand the situation in the field of the invention, and evaluate not only the existing technology, but also the competitors and innovation opportunities in this field.

However, with the increasing number of patent applications and patent data, it may be difficult and time-consuming to find relevant and accurate information and analyze existing technologies-especially for new inventors and users unfamiliar with patent law. IBM’s goal is to help solve this challenge through IBM IP Advisor and promote more people to participate in the innovation process.

By using IBM Watson Discovery technology to support the natural language processing of queries, the demo system can help users locate relevant information by using their own descriptions without using specific terms and complicated methods. Using the dialogue AI technology of IBM Watson Assistant as a guide, users can ask questions to embedded virtual agents to further inform and optimize their patent analysis.

The IBM Advisor and Watson demo system use a subset of publicly available U.S. patent data, and can be publicly tested and fed back in USPTO’s open data portal. The test ended on November 30th this year.

SteveLaFleche, general manager of IBM’s public and federal markets in the United States, said, "The research and analysis of existing technologies is the foundation of a successful product or service release, but the growth of existing technologies, coupled with the need for proper keywords and correct patent classification, may be an obstacle for ordinary inventors to enter." "We are not only deploying smarter technologies, but also building a better and more accessible intellectual property system."