Haynes and Boone, LLP Counsel Dina Blikshteyn talked with Legaltech News about China’s dominance in filing legal tech patents as a result of government encouragement of innovation and the significant role of artificial intelligence (AI) role in legal tech software.
Here is an excerpt:
Out of 1,369 legal tech patents filed with the World Intellectual Property Organization in 2019, 847 were filed by applicants in China, according to a Thomson Reuters press statement dated Oct. 29. U.S.-based applicants also applied for 271 filings in 2019, followed by 90 filings in the Republic of Korea, 85 in Japan and 13 in the United Kingdom. Thomson Reuters also crowned China as the top legal tech patent filer in 2018.
China leading legal tech patent filings wasn’t surprising, said Haynes and Boone Intellectual Property Practice Group Counsel Dina Blikshteyn, given the country’s dominance in AI that powers most general and legal-specific software.
"A lot of legal tech tends to relate to artificial intelligence, and China is the biggest filer of AI in 2019 and is also projected to lead for 2020,” Blikshteyn said. “In the past year or two we saw a lot of artificial intelligence patents coming from the legal space in terms of contract review or predicting litigation outcome.”
What’s more, Blikshteyn said lower thresholds for patentability could extend China’s dominance in legal tech patent filings.
Currently in the U.S., patenting a “business step” as opposed to a technology process is difficult, she explained. But if China approves patents for business steps, she expects more legal tech and general technology patents to continue.
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