Artificial Intelligence (AI) Takes a Role in USPTO Patent Searches

In 2021 the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) developed an Artificial Intelligence (AI) based prototype search system for use by examiners during examination of patent applications. As previously discussed by Mintz, the AI search system aimed to help identify relevant documents and provide suggestions to examiners for additional areas to search. The USPTO found searching success with the prototype, for the USPTO just launched an AI-based "Similarity Search" in the Patents End-to-End (PE2E) prior art search suite for patents examiners. As explained by the USPTO, a patent examiner provides input, including a patent specification, to the "Similarity Search" feature. The feature then uses AI models to identify and, within seconds, output U.S. and foreign patent references similar to the patent application being examined.