Page 83 - TI Journal 18-1

THE PILLARS OF PATENT QUALITY 77

With over 8,300 patent examiners, one million Already, the USPTO is developing algorithms to
pending cases at any given time, and 600,000 new identify trends in patent examination and areas for
applications submitted each year, an immense quan- improvement, which will result in further targeted
tity of patent data is generated and stored on com- training including training, potentially, by technol-
puter servers at the USPTO every single day. Each ogy area. In addition, artificial intelligence offers the
application submitted to the USPTO will eventually promise of supplementing an examiner’s manual
contain a prosecution history detailing the office searches of prior art with automated searches using
actions, revisions, changes, interactions between artificial intelligence techniques.
applicant and examiner, and other details about the Along with the ongoing development of big data
case. Along with such data, the USPTO holds, quite and artificial intelligence to enhance patent quality,
possibly, the largest repository of technical infor- the USPTO is also inviting the public to join in the
mation known to mankind. With over nine million pursuit of data mining and making use of that data.
issued patents, millions more rejected applications, In fact, by the time this article publishes, the USPTO
drawings, supporting documents, foreign patent lit- will have released application program interfaces
erature, peer-reviewed articles, manuals, and any (APIs) to its patent data for the first time. This will
other piece of relevant information, the amount of allow computer programmers to explore USPTO
prior art easily comprises billions of pages. data according to their own interests, curiosity, or
Such data presents a ripe opportunity. In 2015, business needs.
Director Lee challenged a small internal team to The Enhanced Patent Quality Initiative, as well as
develop innovative ways for utilizing this information. the use of big data and artificial intelligence to assist
It certainly helps that Director Lee not only grasps in searching and data mining, promises to open a
the concepts of big data and machine learning, but new age in patent examination practice at the USPTO
understands it at a practicing level, having received and beyond. As “America’s Innovation Agency,” the
her master’s degree while working in the Artificial USPTO is living up to that motto by not just protect-
Intelligence Lab at MIT and then later serving as the ing the ideas and inventions of the world, but also
head of patent strategy at Google during its formative adding to them.
years.