Seattle startup TurboPatent is releasing a pair of new products designed to improve the patent application process, with help from artificial intelligence.
TurboPatent, which raised $1.4 million in funding earlier this year, focuses on corporations and law firms, automating tasks like formatting or document preparation, for example, freeing up people to work on more complex, high-value work. The service is designed to cut costs, save time and lead to more accurate patent documentation.
The new products are called RoboReview and RapidResponse. RoboReview uses AI and predictive analytics to automatically analyze and review draft patent applications. The company says this will reduce to seconds a process that can normally take several people multiple days to complete. RapidResponse helps speed up office actions, written correspondence between an applicant and patent examiner during the application process.
“Like any procedure that involves people, the review process is subject to human error,” said TurboPatent CEO James Billmaier. “TurboPatent automates the most tedious and time-consuming parts of the process, which drastically cuts down on the likelihood of potential issues going unnoticed. That leaves humans to decide whether or not to submit a patent and if so, what alterations need to be made.”
Formerly known as Patent Navigation, TurboPatent has an experienced team led by co-founders Billmaier and Charles Mirho. Billmaier was previously CEO of Melodeo, a cloud-based media platform company that sold to HP in 2010. He also teamed up with Paul Allen in 1999 to launch home-entertainment technology company Digeo, which was eventually sold in 2009 to ARRIS Group Inc.
Mirho, meanwhile, is a patent law veteran, having worked as a patent counsel at Intel and later as a managing partner of a patent law firm. He also has a computer science degree from Rutgers.
