Addressing sustainability of the global patent system: the role of AI in enhancing productivity

The sustainability of the global patent system is under pressure from the rapid growth in patent application volume and complexity. In countries seeing the fastest growth, resulting capacity gaps delay patent examination, by years in some cases, put patent quality at risk, and threaten to slow the pace of innovation and investment. 

This white paper explores challenges and opportunities for patent offices as they seek to ensure sustainability and plan for future growth, with a focus on the application of workflow solutions enabled by AI to enhance productivity. It includes insights and learnings from a collaboration between CAS and the National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI) of Brazil to address their application backlog and improve examination workflow efficiency, resulting in significant operational improvements: 

• Up to 50% reduction in examination times
• 77% of all national applications processed required less examiner search time
• 29% of all national applications processed required little or no additional search
• Workloads were efficiently managed without adding staff 
• Examiners were freed up to focus on other priorities
• Productivity improvements contributed to a reduction of 80% in the office’s backlog