Revolutionizing IP Processes with AI

Wirtschaftsforum: Mr. Holzner, with 'Active Business Protection', your company already includes its primary objective in the name - at which point exactly do you support your customers?

Daniel Holzner: ABP was originally founded as a classic service provider for patent research, which remains an important pillar of our business activity. In this context, we also conduct further research in intellectual property, such as for brand names. Meanwhile, we also handle the management of renewal fees for our clients, enabling them to consistently maintain the relevant protection rights, and offer additional services such as coordinating the transfer of protection rights. With uptoIP, we have also been providing a software solution for some time now, with which mainly industrial companies can conveniently manage their intellectual property rights.

Wirtschaftsforum: With the Patent Butler, which you developed together with IBM, artificial intelligence is now also making an entrance into your work. What impetus do you expect from this innovation?

Daniel Holzner: The utility of our Patent Butler begins already at the research stage: there are more than 160 million patent publications worldwide, which theoretically would need to be searched to refute the novelty of a tangible invention, or – by the absence of corresponding findings – to confirm it, to then focus all further patent applications or product developments.

Many work steps arising in this context, commonly referred to as ‘burdensome,’ can be implemented by AI in significantly less time than by a human, who thereby gains the freedom to concentrate on other qualitative approaches. However, this is not the only perspective from which a significant utility arises due to new AI capabilities: If research reveals information contradicting the novelty of the invention, a worthwhile attempt can be made with the help of AI to find clever variations to uncover 'whitespots,' making it still worthwhile to pursue the original idea under sensibly altered conditions. At the same time, data security plays a crucial role here: It would be a clear no-go, in our view, to feed publicly accessible Large Language Models with sensitive data during the discovery phase.

Wirtschaftsforum: Will a human in the loop continue to be necessary in the future?

Daniel Holzner: AI is a powerful tool to facilitate the work of our specialists, and naturally, our employees will also need more advanced digital expertise in the future. Nonetheless, nothing can replace the technical understanding required to assess the respective results and innovations. Depending on how quickly AI applications evolve, processes in patent procedures could shift significantly – since much more powerful tools are now available in the early phases of patent research, it may be sensible to advance topics that were often addressed later in patent procedures.

Thus, it can now be sensible to seek comprehensive legal advice much earlier in the process of patents, but also in the registration of trademarks and designs. Other AI innovations foreseeable in the coming years might meanwhile open up more stringent IP portfolio management – which could then also provide a significant competitive advantage for European industry in global competition.