AI and Patent Search – The Importance of Context

AI is revolutionizing patent search, but its power depends on one crucial factor: context. Brad Buehler, CEO of Ensemble IP, shares how combining AI technology with human insight leads to more precise, efficient, and meaningful results across every stage of the patent search process.

Easier. Faster. Better. The promise of AI tools in patent search offers all of this; however, the reality has proven that effective use of AI tools requires effort. AI is an extremely important technique that we can use to search and analyze patent information much more quickly and effectively than ever before. As with any tool, the challenge lies in learning how to use AI to maximize its usefulness. We’ve been conditioned to expect magic – simply input your disclosure and you will receive the three best references without fail! This oversimplification hides the true power and benefit of AI in patent search. By approaching AI with a “Human in the Loop” mindset, you will learn how to harness the power of AI and increase its impact in your daily workflow. 

With traditional searching, the searcher uses keywords, class codes, metadata and reviews the references one-by-one to determine relevancy. Highlighting schemes help guide the document review, but the search still relies on the appearance of a certain word or combination of words. AI offers us the ability to focus on concepts and identifies relevant documents based on the concepts as opposed to specific words. Just as traditional search techniques allow for iteration, we need to expect the same from AI. 

Imagine you have asked two different colleagues to do a patentability search on a new disclosure. Both have significant patent search experience, but one has worked at your company for 20 years and one started last week. Would you expect each of them to deliver the same results set? It would be reasonable to expect slightly different results. In fact, the colleague with 20 years’ experience in your company likely has additional information about your company and previous projects that helps inform their search. Each colleague brings their own experience and context to the search, much of which may not be included in the text of the search request.

AI search tools present the same dilemma – they are another brain that we can use, but that brain can lack context. The ability to easily interact and add context to your search is a critical part of an effective AI tool. In traditional Boolean search techniques, we call this iterating. The ability to iterate is just as important with AI search tools. 

As patent information professionals, Ensemble IP is the leader in understanding the importance of iteration in a search and has built this knowledge and experience directly into Quartet. Following a “human in the loop” philosophy, the ability to direct and iterate with the AI allows a user to add context throughout the search process. Quartet is built with the patent search workflow in mind and keeps you in the loop at every step of the way. 

Quartet is the patent search platform that makes the patent search process easier, faster, and better. Having the ability to easily add context to your search process is a non-negotiable requirement for any patent search. Spending less time creating a result set and more time reviewing relevant results aids in faster and more effective decision making. Used effectively, AI helps you make better patent decisions.