USPTO’s powerful new AI-powered virtual patent assistant

Folks, I tried out USPTO’s powerful new AI-powered virtual patent assistant.  Words cannot suffice to describe how clever this new virtual assistant is, but I will try. 

We all received the email today from the USPTO announcing the launch of this clever new AI-powered patent virtual assistant.  As Director Vidal explains:

USPTO Virtual Assistant now available for Patents customers
Use the expanded tool on select Patents pages and submit feedback
Last week, we launched the USPTO Virtual Assistant as a feature on select Patents webpages. This expansion from trademarks- to patents-related content continues our efforts to enhance our customer service and increase access to our resources.
“The USPTO is continuously working to create a more productive and efficient customer experience,” said Kathi Vidal, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO. “It is an essential part of reaching all innovators where they are and providing them with the information they need to protect their inventions and brands.”
The Virtual Assistant provides answers to common customer questions and makes it easier to find the status of your patent application. … This expanded tool is another way we have leveraged machine learning to offer improved services, …

 (emphasis added.) I tried it out, and you can too. Here is how it works for finding the status of your patent application. You go to any of half a dozen web pages on the USPTO web site that relate to patents. And then do you remember the adorable and much-loved Mister Clippy in Microsoft Windows, from maybe ten years ago? A sort of window that pops up?

(Update:  several alert readers (see comments below) have informed me that Mister Clippy actually dates from twenty-six years ago.  How time flies.)

Well what you get now from the USPTO is I think best described as a reincarnation of Mister Clippy.  A sort of window pops up in the lower right corner of the screen, saying:

“Hi! I’m your USPTO virtual assistant. I can … check the status of your patent or application …”

(emphasis added.)  So I tried it out.  The way it works is, you type in the patent application number.  And the virtual assistant then asks what kind of number you typed in.  One of the buttons that appears on the screen is “application number”.  (Other button choices include patent number, publication number, and PCT number.)  I tapped the button for “application number”.  I was mere seconds away from learning the status of my patent application!  I was on the edge of my chair.  And then you will never be able to guess what happened next.  What it said was:

Sorry, the entered Application Number ‘nnnnnnnn’ is not available. The number may have been incorrectly typed, or assigned to an application that is not yet available for public inspection.

Okay, I guess my expectations were a bit too high.  I guess if the application is not yet published, this powerful new AI-powered USPTO virtual patent assistant is not able to tell me the status of my patent application.

So I decided to try this again, this time with a patent application number for a patent application that has been published.  And again the virtual assistant asked what kind of number I typed in.  Again I tapped the button for “application number”.  Once again I was mere seconds away from learning the status of my patent application!  Once again I was on the edge of my chair.  And then you will never be able to guess what happened next.  What it did was open up the Patent Center page for that patent application number.

This is really great.  The USPTO virtual assistant really does check the status of my application!  And it uses some very powerful AI to do it.

These USPTO folks have outdone themselves this time with the cleverness of this USPTO virtual assistant.

No matter how much money (in terms of user fees) got spent to develop this clever USPTO virtual assistant, it was worth it.  Take it from me.