Chris Harrison – Head of IP Analytics and Data Insights, UK Intellectual Property Office
In 2018 the UK Intellectual Property Office undertook a research study seeking to understand the feasibility, technical complexities and effectiveness of using AI solutions to assist patent examiners as part of the prior art search process. Cardiff University were commissioned to undertake this research which included an in-depth review of literature, interviews and an experimental proof-of-concept for an AI-assisted prior art search tool. This was developed with a focus on retrieving the closest documents, ranking relevant documents, suggesting synonyms, suggesting classifications, visualising the retrieved documents/concepts and clustering. This research was funded through the UK government’s Regulators’ Pioneer Fund (RPF) that was set up to help address barriers to innovation in the UK economy.