Pre-Council Seminar, Budapest, 15 November 2024:
The Responsible Use of AI in the Patent Granting Process and the Work of the Patent Attorney
Council Members and Members of epi were fortunate to enjoy a highly informative seminar before the 98th Meeting of Council in Budapest on 15 November 2024.
The speakers were Ms Nellie Simon, VP DG4 EPO; Diego Eguidazu Alonso, Chief Information Officer of the EPO; Dr Jan-Christian Schütte, EPA, of the Patent Department of Siemens AG in Berlin; Dr Coreena Brinck, EPA, Patent Attorney of Two IP in the UK and Intuicell in Sweden; and Dr Isabela Parisio, Postdoctoral Researcher at King’s College, London and Researcher at Responsible AI UK (RAI UK). Each of them brought a unique and informative perspective on the use of AI in the work of patent attorneys.
Ms Simon’s keynote presentation drew on her background in finance and economics and provided extensive information on how the policies of the EPO have changed, and will continue to develop, in an era in which AI prevails.
Mr Eguidazu Alonso explained in considerable detail the EPO’s technical strategies relating to the use of AI in the pre-classification and pre-search processes, referring to the EPO’s emphasis on quality in all aspects of the patent creation and granting process in order to maximise the efficiencies available. The use of AI in these areas, which has been continuing for some time, has improved for example the measurable accuracy of the searching process. This was demonstrated through a series of informative graphs and images.
Dr Schütte gave numerous insights into the processes relating to use of AI in a large company such as Siemens. In particular Dr Schütte presented information on how Siemens has evaluated various AI products and introduced them into the workflow within the Patent Department of the company.
The presentation by Dr Brinck provided insightful detail on the “nuts and bolts” of large language models (LLMs); and also focussed on the use of AI products in the work of the private practice attorney.
The final presentation, by Dr Parisio, explained in considerable detail the various classes of regulatory regime existing in different organisations. She then assessed the key requirements of a sound regulatory regime with features of the Guidelines on the Use of AI that were to be voted on in the subsequent meeting of Council.
In a short Q & A session at the end of the seminar the audience members showed considerable insights into the issues surrounding the use of AI by patent attorneys. Overall the seminar was useful precursor to study of epi’s Guidelines on the Use of AI that were subsequently approved in the meeting of Council on 16 November 2024.
