Patents, AI, and the Future of Attorney Practice
The future is AI-powered, and so will be the work of us patent attorneys.
As artificial intelligence rapidly reshapes the intellectual property landscape, I know firsthand how challenging it can be to keep track of the evolving ethical, legal, and procedural standards. To help you stay compliant and informed, I’ve created this living repository of official guidelines on the use of AI in patent work. I will continuously update … Read more
I’ve been invited to be a GuestKat on the one-and-only IPKat blog! 🤗 In my guest post, “Will the human in the loop please stand up?”, I dive into the EPO’s current AI practices following their recent Search and Examination Matters 2026 conference. The EPO is moving rapidly past the hype phase and into full … Read more
Every year, when the preview of the new EPO Guidelines are released, I do the same thing: I open the PDF and immediately CTRL+F for “Artificial Intelligence”. The preview of the Guidelines due to enter into force on 1 April 2026 are all about stability, liabilitym and the “human in the loop”. Here’s my summary: … Read more
Yesterday, I had the privilege of speaking at the EPO’s flagship conference, Search and Examination Matters 2026. We had over 800 participants watching live. The energy was incredible, and it confirmed one thing: The profession is waking up. We are moving past the “hype” phase of AI and entering the “deployment” phase. But we didn’t … Read more
“The name of the game is the claim.” It’s a cliché, but it’s true. That’s why I start every new patent application with the claims. But I’ve always dreaded that awkward “blank page” moment. I’m sure you know the feeling. You’ve digested the invention disclosure. You’ve mapped out the protection hierarchy. Yet, there you are, … Read more
The office air tasted of floor wax and cold pizza. Lucas rubbed eyes that felt packed with grit, the partnership carrot dangling just inches from his nose. He needed this AeroTech Dynamics application to be bulletproof—a high-frequency drone rotor system that had to survive Mach 1. He fed the invention disclosure into ChatGeni, trusting the … Read more
Thanks to everybody who took my survey last week. 45% of participating patent attorneys prefer a self-hosted, local AI solution. So I thought I’d share a 100% private, offline installation with you today: Installation and Settings Which Local LLM is Best? The available LLMs are constantly evolving. My current favorite picks are: These run fast … Read more
Let’s be honest: by 2026, we’ve all started thinking about using AI to help with patent drafting. The promises of massive time-savings are just too good to ignore. But there is a massive risk to how we practice that we aren’t talking about enough. I recently came across research by Advait Sarkar from Microsoft Research, … Read more
If you define your value through the documents you produce, you’re in trouble. Computers can now draft patent applications, office action replies and opposition briefs with near-perfect fluency. The Advisory Trap I remember how I was trained two decades ago. My supervisor taught me to be a neutral facilitator: “Here are the examiner’s objections and three … Read more
A popular framework suggests AI can handle low-stakes legal work while humans tackle the high-stakes issues. This idea, recently discussed in a LinkedIn post by Kevin Ahlstrom, is seductive but rests on a catastrophic misconception. It wrongly assumes a patent attorney’s job is just to find ‘correct answers.’ If that were true, the profession would … Read more