Pathways To Productivity: What Our 2025 Industry Outlook Research Reveals About AI In IP – New Technology

AI technologies have developed rapidly since our
inaugural Outlook Research revealed enthusiasm and impatience among
patent and trademark professionals for dedicated AI solutions for
IP. This year, we set out to assess whether their calls for
innovation had been answered. Download ‘Pathways to
Productivity: AI in IP’ to discover our findings.

Over three months, we consulted more than 500 IP professionals
around the globe about a series of topics, including their
enthusiasm for predictive and generative AI solutions for IP, their
views on the advantages and disadvantages of existing tools, where
they would most like to see investment in AI and non-AI based
technologies in the next five years, and how IP service and
technology providers can improve their offerings to better serve
their needs. The results are captured in our latest report
‘Pathways to Productivity: AI in IP’.

Research Highlights and Major Talking Points

—AI adoption has already reached a critical
mass in the IP sector:

• 77% of organizations are quite or very enthusiastic
  about AI; only 5% say they are quite or very reluctant or
  risk-averse




• 76% of respondents believe AI adoption creates a
  competitive advantage;




• 65% of respondents believe AI is disrupting traditional
  supplier models for IP services, with 73% sharing that it
  had already influenced their choice of supplier for select
  services;




• 64% believe it will forever transform the role of IP
  professionals;




• 58% actively use AI solutions for IP, citing a
  positive impact on their work;




• 46% use AI solutions for IP at least once a
  day.
  

How often do you use AI solutions for IP?

—The top 3 areas for AI adoption across
all respondents are:

When considering trademark respondents only, the top three tasks
are search (91%), watch (53%),
and office action response management (51%).

—When asked why they adopted AI solutions:

• 77% are actively seeking ways to save time and
  costs,




• 45% believe AI technologies are an inevitable
  progression,




• 42% are interested in any technology that can add new
  efficiencies, and




• 39% invested out of curiosity to measure
  quality and potential benefits.

Quality and Performance Metrics

—Respondents are broadly satisfied with the quality of AI
output compared to manual or non-AI technologies: patent
translation (42%), workflow management (34%), and IP docketing/
data verification (32.5%) are at a “higher quality
than expected,” while trademark search (41%), watch
(41%), opposition handling (40%), and brand/trademark creation
(40%) solutions deliver a “workable first
draft.”

—45% estimate AI solutions for IP deliver a time
saving of at least 25%, with 33% estimating a
budget saving of 25%+ (see page 13).

—The top 6 features IP professionals
value most are:

• 1. Summarization (65%)




• 2. Search assistants in natural language (59%)




• 3. Translation (55%)




• 4. Chatbots/Q&A (42%)




• 5. Image search (40%)




• 6. Task automation (34%)

Confidentiality and Security

Understandably, confidentiality and security are as critical as
quality for respondents:

• Most research participants prefer the flexibility and
  availability of a secure software-as-a-service
  (SaaS) offering (53%) to on-premises hosting models (18%).




• 24% stipulate that data and processing geolocation should be in
  their own country (29% have no preference).




• Most prefer AI models trained on internal data—whether
  specific AI models for IP (26%) or general-purpose AI models (20%),
  such as ChatGPT4 or Llama—over general-purpose AI models
  using public data (14%).

Current and Future Needs

Innovation in IP management technology remains a topic of
contention for many participants:

What are your views on current IP
technologies?

• Data-driven insights (52%), integrated software and services
  (50%), and connected analytics and enforcement activities (35%) are
  rising up strategic agendas.




• IP professionals most desire improved portfolio analytics to
  facilitate renewal/opposition decisions, assist with budget
  forecasting, and help track time/success/cost.
  

Read the results of our findings in full by downloading
the report today!

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