Meet Dorothy: The New AI Patent Concept Search Tool

Pittsburgh-based tech startup Three10 Solutions has bagged a $250,000 angel investment to continue development of its AI patent concept search system, named Dorothy. It is also looking for design partners to join the project.

Its central idea is that unlike some other systems, it uses NLP to do conceptual searches for similar products, rather than depending just on key words, which are rarely sufficient for a detailed analysis.

Using a block of text, such as an abstract, invention summary, or product data sheet, Dorothy searches for ‘similar texts‘ in published patents, producing results focused on the idea’s concepts rather than keywords.

Dorothy identifies relevant prior art based on the concepts described in searched publications, which ‘eliminates 20% of the irrelevant search results, saving associate time and increasing gross margins on search related tasks by up to 30%’ the startup said.

The team said they hope to launch in January 2019 as they work through customer validation, product design, and further development with their software partner Truefit.

They added that they are also looking for early stage partners to join in the project, who will receive a discount as recompense.

Curt Wadsworth, a patent lawyer and founder and CEO of Three10 Solutions, said: ‘If you are building next generation search technology, it only makes sense to involve as many patent lawyers as you can in the development process.’

‘We get the hardest of hardcore users to train Dorothy and our patent lawyer partners profit from tasks, like patentability searching, that historically lose money,’ he added.

I.e. if the cost of doing searches for clients is relatively low fee, and/or fixed fee, then the more you can automate this process with accurate tools the better.

The company added to its explanation that: ‘Patent Office fees for responding to each Office Action, costs patentees between $5,000 and $10,000. By drafting patent claims that avoid the prior art which Dorothy identifies, patent attorneys can eliminate at least one Office Action, thereby reducing prosecution time and saving clients money.’

P.S. If you’d like to partner with Dorothy, then you can contact the team here.