The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is advancing the use of generative artificial intelligence tools to streamline business operations and enable employees to focus more on high-impact work, Nextgov/FCW reported Tuesday.
“The biggest lesson we learned [when introducing AI] was that all AI requires knowing your data, knowing data structure, data elements, data flow and, most importantly, data security,” Jamie Holcombe, chief information officer at USPTO, said Tuesday at an agency-hosted discussion.
“We realize that we are now in an era of intelligent computing where we succeed only by combining data, AI and infrastructure security for results and measurable outcomes,” Holcombe added.
Scout Chatbot Assistant
Some of the AI tools that USPTO uses are the Patents End-to-End search tool and Scout.
Scout is short for searching, consolidating, outlining and understanding. It is a chatbot assistant built from a large language model designed to help detect improper filings, support code development and advance cybersecurity threat detection efforts.
Debbie Stephens, deputy CIO at USPT, said the Scout platform supports over 200 users as of June.
“We believe our homegrown GenAI web application, Scout, has already proven its capabilities and look forward to a beta version in late summer,” Stephens noted.
RFI on AI Capabilities
In early June, USPTO started soliciting industry information on AI capabilities to enhance the patent and trademark examination processes.
According to the RFI, the agency is seeking contractors with new AI tools or IT capabilities that could improve its efficiency in granting patents, registering trademarks and advancing intellectual property policies.
