The audit involved case studies of two AI applications—the Cooperative Patent Classification, which groups all patent documents by their subject matter, and a tool that allows examiners to compare a patent application with existing patents. Image: Murr.pix Photography/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffThe U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and its parent Commerce Department have numerous internal bodies governing deployment of AI in the agency but those bodies should provide for more involvement by employees who would be using that technology, an inspector general report has said.
The report said that AI governance bodies include the Commerce AI Council, the Commerce AI Governance Board and the AI and Open Government Data Assets Working Group, the latter two of which include USPTO representatives. The USPTO itself further has an AI Innovation and Governance Council, and offices including the CIO and the Office of Information Technology for Patents also play roles, it said.
The audit involved case studies of two AI applications—the Cooperative Patent Classification, which groups all patent documents by their subject matter, and a tool that allows examiners to compare a patent application with existing patents—which it said “can improve the efficiency of USPTO operations and strengthen the reliability” of intellectual property rights.
“However, USPTO can improve its stakeholder involvement prior to AI system development. While we determined that some stakeholders were involved in all stages of the AI lifecycle, we also found that examiners should have been engaged earlier,” the report said.
For the CPC tool, the agency “did not engage with examiners in the early lifecycle phases” and more than half of examiners the IG surveyed were even aware that the agency was using it for certain purposes. Similarly, for the patent search tool, “examiners’ perspectives were also not included before the tool’s development.” Of respondents who had used the latter, only 40 percent were satisfied with one of the key features and just 36 percent were satisfied with a second.
“Feedback during the design/planning phase from users or others outside the development team who are affected by a tool (examiners, for example) can provide valuable insights on matters related to the tool’s context, such as whether to pursue a project or how to effectively design a project,” it said.
Other issues included that while the agency identified goals for both tools, “the goals were not accompanied by specific, measurable, and clear objectives and metrics”; “requirements or technical specifications could not be traced to system goals and objectives”; and that the agency does not have an AI-specific risk management plan.
The agency concurred with the report’s finding and recommendations “and described actions it has taken, or will take, to address them.”
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