USPTO wants AI help to speed up patent approvals — but expects vendors to work for exposure, not cash.
The US Patent and Trademark Office dropped a request for information (RFI) calling on AI firms to assist with trimming patent and trademark backlog. The AI would scan US and foreign patents plus non-patent literature to check if new applications overlap with existing filings.
The goal: AI bots identify relevant prior art, point to exact sections in patents, and reason how old patents relate to new claims. 
The USPTO says this will "increase the overall efficiency of the patent examination process" and improve consistency.
There’s irony in using AI trained on copyrighted material to rule on patents. Plus, legal pros using AI to scan docs have faced trouble when AI gave wrong details or bogus citations.
The office expects human oversight to catch AI errors but didn’t say how.
Deadline: AI vendors have until June 24 to share ideas. The USPTO stresses it’s not a request for bids — just a sounding-out.
The kicker? Payments won’t be cash. The USPTO wants vendors to accept mainly non-monetary benefits: marketing exposure and the prestige of filling a US gov tech gap.
"The selected vendor must be willing to receive consideration that is primarily non-monetary," the USPTO said in its RFI.
"Benefits to the vendor include its ability to display and market its capabilities, and the ability to fulfill a critical US Government technology gap on the world stage."
Vendors must handle all AI infrastructure (compute, storage, networking) inside USPTO’s secure cloud.
No timeline given, but expect a quick rollout as the agency plans to snag “significant new AI capabilities in the coming months.”
Full RFI here: USPTO AI RFI PDF
