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USPTO Accelerates AI in Patent and Trademark Examination: Over 20 Capabilities Deployed, Office Action Drafting Tools Now Being Planned

An examiner's desk: a person seated at a computer reviewing a document, an abstract neural-network pattern of connected nodes floating beside the screen, a document and a magnifying glass on the desk, symbolising examiner-led, AI-assisted patent and trademark examination

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced on 22 September the appointment of Jonathan Spencer as Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer (CAIO), overseeing AI and emerging technology matters within the agency, ensuring that the USPTO deploys innovative technologies in service of innovators and working with agency leadership to modernise, develop and deploy AI systems and technology; Spencer previously developed autonomous driving logic at Waymo and co-founded several AI start-ups. The next day, USPTO Chief Information Officer Deborah Stephens disclosed at an ACT-IAC webinar, as reported by FedScoop and other outlets, that the Office has launched more than 20 AI capabilities with more planned: the enterprise large language model tool Scout has over 7,000 daily and weekly users, and an AI plugin has summarised over 100,000 applications for patent examiners.

Earlier USPTO announcements confirm the trajectory: the AI-assisted Similarity Search tool SimSearch has been available to utility patent examiners since 2022 and is intended to augment rather than replace other search tools, with examiners retaining discretion over whether to apply the results; the ASAP! pilot launched in 2025 uses an internal AI tool to run a prior art search before substantive examination and sends applicants a notice of the results; and on 1 July this year Trademarks achieved full adoption of Scout across all work units including examining attorneys, under the principle that examining attorneys lead and tools support.

Stephens said the Office is specifically eyeing solutions for finding trademark evidence and for Office action drafting for both patents and trademarks; the USPTO has an enterprise adoption team, an AI hub, an AI academy and an AI governance council, its AI is rooted in the philosophy where the examiner leads and AI is a supportive assistant, it will not cut corners and will make sure the AI is sound before releasing it, its quality standards in other areas carry over to AI, and it commits to responsible, transparent AI; the cloud migration is 80% complete with full cloud operation targeted for June 2027.

The value of this item lies in two levels advancing at once: the USPTO has created a dedicated AI leadership post that gathers AI and emerging technology matters under one officer, and AI has moved from experiments into daily examination, with application summaries, search and large language model assistance already at scale and now pointing towards Office action drafting and trademark evidence search.

The USPTO repeatedly stresses that the examiner leads and AI assists and requires AI tools to meet quality requirements before release, but for applicants the way examiners see an application is already changing.

J&C recommends that companies filing in the United States treat AI on the examination side as a given: draft the description and claims assuming examiners will use similarity search and large language model summaries to locate prior art quickly, without relying on wording differences to escape a search; check each AI-retrieved reference cited in a search results notice or Office action against the claims; and follow the development of Office action drafting tools, since a standardised structure and citation style will call for adjusted response templates and arguments.

Source: www.uspto.gov | www.uspto.gov | www.uspto.gov | www.uspto.gov

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