By Godson Umejiego, Bureau Chief, The Americas
In alignment with the Department of Commerce’s strategic goals of providing 21st century service with 21st century capabilities and driving US innovation and global competitiveness, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) recently added the new artificial intelligence (AI)-based “Similarity Search” feature to examiners’ Patents End-to-End (PE2E) search suite. This new tool will support the USPTO’s goal to grant more robust and reliable patents by further assisting patent examiners as they search for prior art during the examination process.
The Similarity Search feature receives examiner-selected application information, including the specification, as input, and uses trained AI models to output a list of domestic and foreign patent documents that are similar to the patent application being searched. The examiner can refine the AI-based Similarity Search queries using Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) and text snippet selection capabilities. When a search is performed using Similarity Search, it will be reflected in the search history recorded in the file wrapper.
“This AI-based tool is another example of the USPTO identifying tools, processes, and procedures to better equip examiners as they do their critical work to advance innovation in America,” remarked Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO, Kathi Vidal.
