Posts Tagged: "artificial intelligence"

While AI can improve research, drafting, analysis, and overall work product quality, the panel emphasized that it is not a magic button and cannot replace expert legal judgment. The most effective use of AI in patent practice is incremental, targeted, and lawyer-directed—more co-pilot than autopilot. Panelists explored the risks created when inventors, clients, or law firms over-rely on AI-generated disclosures, patent application critiques, or claim strategy recommendations, including the potential for increased attorney workload, inventorship complications, technical inaccuracies, and downstream litigation vulnerabilities. The conversation ultimately framed AI as both a market disruptor and a strategic opportunity for patent law firms. Firms that respond defensively or compete solely on price risk being pushed into an unsustainable race to the bottom. Firms that lean into client education, workflow redesign, transparent billing expectations, disciplined AI usage, and higher-value counseling will be better positioned to compete. The panel made clear that AI will not eliminate the need for sophisticated patent counsel; it will expose which firms are genuinely strategic partners and which are merely labor providers.

To compete in artificial intelligence (AI) markets, emerging companies must choose one of two routes: the capital-intensive route entails buying compute and datasets to build in-house foundation models and refining them into agents for specific use cases. Alternatively, emergents can license pre-trained models and lease compute to focus on developing applications for the end user, whether that is a solo software developer or an entire business domain.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is going through a significant digital transformation. With the Office seemingly updating its procedures as rapidly as the latest AI model, it’s important to track what this means for IP practice. AI is transforming the tools governing how the Office now processes what is filed, and the Office’s vacillations on AI inventorship should be top of mind for every practitioner.

A bipartisan, bicameral group of Congress members today reintroduced the “Nurture Originals, Foster Art, and Keep Entertainment Safe Act of 2026” (NO FAKES Act), a bill that would create a federal IP right to an individual’s voice and likeness. Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Chris Coons (D-DE), Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), joined Representatives Maria Salazar (R-FL) and Madeleine Dean (D-PA) to sponsor the bill.

“Should we insource IP work?” This perennial question is posed by in-house professionals and organizational leaders in corporations, universities, and other institutions—and dreaded by outside IP counsel, who fear loss of insourced client business. Deceptively binary and straightforward, the insourcing question often can’t be answered without in-house teams first exploring a host of underlying considerations. Their decision-making calculus may confront grey areas and vexing tradeoffs, ultimately coming down to rough cost-benefit analyses and gut instincts.

As in-house patent teams rethink how work is allocated, the implications for outside counsel are unavoidable. Corporate clients are asking whether work being done by outside counsel is being performed as efficiently as possible and even starting to ask whether it needs to be performed by outside counsel at all. At least some in-house teams are wondering whether the same or better result can be achieved internally using AI-enabled tools. If the answer is yes, then clients can be expected to decrease reliance on outside counsel, looking to law firm attorneys for targeted support, not end-to-end project management.

Artificial intelligence has moved beyond the experimental phase in legal practice. The legal industry is no longer debating whether lawyers can or should use AI tools, or whether AI will affect the economics of law firm and in-house legal department operations. Those questions have been answered. AI is already reshaping how legal work is performed, how legal departments manage demand, how law firms are expected to price services, how patent teams analyze portfolios, and how clients evaluate outside counsel.

During a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property hearing on the Oversight of the U.S. Copyright Office on Tuesday, the intersection of copyright law, artificial intelligence, and executive branch interference were the key focuses. Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter provided critical updates on the Copyright Office’s modernization efforts. However, the hearing was punctuated by sharp rebukes from Democratic senators regarding former President Donald Trump’s recent attempts to assert executive control over the legislative branch agency.

This week on IPWatchdog Unleashed, I spoke again with Fran Cruz, Senior Vice President of IP Solutions for Juristat. Our conversation was about a topic that should be top of mind for every patent prosecution firm, every in-house IP department, and every legal operations professional trying to make sense of the current market for patent related legal work. Where is patent prosecution work going, when does work move from firm to firm, when it does move, where is it moving, and what will firms have to do to win—or keep—the patent preparation and prosecution work?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is moving faster than traditional intellectual property (IP) strategy was designed to handle. The issue is not simply speed, although speed is certainly part of the problem. The deeper challenge is that AI innovation does not fit neatly into the legacy IP operating model. The assets, development cycles, regulatory environment, and commercial pathways are all different. And the value drivers are increasingly distributed across a spectrum of AI-related intangible domains, which include patents, trade secrets, data rights, software architecture, licensing models, and customer contracts.

Artificial intelligence is no longer a futuristic talking point in patent practice. It is already being deployed by patent practitioners who understand a simple truth: AI is not a substitute for legal judgment, technical understanding, claim strategy, or client counseling. When implemented properly, AI is a force multiplier. It can compress timelines, improve consistency, reduce low-value friction, provide meaningful portfolio intelligence, and allow practitioners to spend more time on the work that actually requires professional expertise.

This week on IPWatchdog Unleashed, my conversation with Hilary Preston, partner at Vinson & Elkins and co-head of its intellectual property and technology litigation practice, underscores a fundamental shift underway in how sophisticated organizations approach intellectual property. What was once a reactive, litigation-centric discipline, is rapidly evolving into something far more strategic—an integrated function that sits at the intersection of technology, business, and risk management. Ultimately, what emerged from this discussion is a vision of IP practice that is far more integrated and strategic than the traditional model. It is a shift from courtroom to boardroom counselor—from reactive defense to proactive governance. For practitioners, this requires a broader skill set and a willingness to engage deeply with technology and business. For clients, it offers the promise of more effective risk management and better alignment between legal strategy and commercial objectives.

Welcome back to Cool AI Patents of the Month, where we highlight innovations that blur the line between science fiction and real-world engineering. Last month, we looked at AI-generated voice replicas, particularly in sports broadcasting. That concept is no longer theoretical. Major League Baseball players have reportedly entered into agreements enabling the creation of AI-driven digital avatars, allowing fans to engage directly with AI-generated versions of their favorite players. The takeaway is clear: personality and likeness are being productized. What once seemed futuristic is quickly becoming commercially relevant.

China was not the only actor being scrutinized today during a full Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, titled “Stealth Stealing: China’s Ongoing Theft of U.S. Innovation.”  Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) stood in for Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) as Chair and opened the hearing with a warning that, in addition to its blatant IP theft—which is estimated to cost the United States between $400 billion and $600 billion per year—China is more recently evolving from “imitator to innovator.” “The United States must overcome its historic and ideological views that China is unable to innovate,” Tillis said.