US Patent and Trademark Office Bans Internal Use of Generative AI Tools

The US Patent and Trademark Office Banned Staff From Using Generative AI

The agency dedicated to protecting new innovations prohibited almost all internal use of GenAI tools, though employees can still participate in controlled experiments. The US Patent and Trademark Office banned the use of generative artificial intelligence for any purpose last year, citing security concerns with the technology as well as the propensity of some tools to exhibit "bias, unpredictability, and malicious behavior," according to an April 2023 internal guidance memo obtained by WIRED through a public records request. Jamie Holcombe, the chief information officer of the USPTO, wrote that the office is "committed to pursuing innovation within our agency" but are still "working to bring these capabilities to the office in a responsible way." Paul Fucito, press secretary for the USPTO, clarified to WIRED that employees can use "state-of-the-art generative AI models" at work -- but only inside the agency's internal testing environment. "Innovators from across the USPTO are now using the AI Lab to better understand generative AI's capabilities and limitations and to prototype AI-powered solutions to critical business needs," Fucito wrote in an email. Outside of the testing environment, USPTO staff are barred from relying on AI programs like OpenAI's ChatGPT or Anthropic's Claude for work tasks. The guidance memo from last year also prohibits the use of any outputs from the tools, including images and videos generated by AI. But Patent Office employees can use some approved AI programs, such as those within the agency's own public database for looking up registered patents and patent applications. Earlier this year, the USPTO approved a $75 million contract with Accenture Federal Services to update its patent database with enhanced AI-powered search features. The US Patent and Trademark Office, an agency within the Department of Commerce, is in charge of protecting inventors, awarding patents, and registering trademarks. It also "advises the president of the United States, the secretary of commerce, and US government agencies on intellectual property (IP) policy, protection, and enforcement," according to the USPTO's website. At a Google-sponsored event in 2023, Holcombe, the author of the guidance memo, said government bureaucracy makes it difficult for the public sector to use new technologies. "Everything we do in the government is pretty stupid, when you compare it to the commercial world, right?" he said. Holcombe specifically cited cumbersome budgeting, procurement, and compliance processes, arguing that they hamper the government's ability to rapidly adopt innovations like artificial intelligence. The USPTO is not the only government agency to ban staff from using generative AI, at least for some purposes. Earlier this year, the National Archives and Records Administration prohibited the use of ChatGPT on government-issued laptops, according to 404 Media. But soon afterward, the National Archives hosted an internal presentation that encouraged employees to "think of [Google's] Gemini as a co-worker." During the meeting, some archivists reportedly expressed concerns about the accuracy of generative AI. Next month, the National Archives is planning to release a new public chatbot for accessing archival records developed with technology from Google. Other US government agencies are using -- or avoiding -- generative AI in different ways. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, for example, specifically banned the use of AI chatbots for sensitive data. NASA did decide, however, to experiment with the technology for writing code and summarizing research. The agency also announced last week that it's working with Microsoft on an AI chatbot that can aggregate satellite data to make it easily searchable. That tool is available only to NASA scientists and researchers, but the goal is to "democratize access to spaceborne data."

The U.S. Patent Office Won’t Let Its Employees Use AI Tools Like ChatGPT

But that doesn’t mean the Patent Office isn’t using AI, quite the opposite. Last year, the US Patent and Trademark Office banned the use of AI tools like ChatGPT in the office. An internal memo obtained by WIRED through a public records request detailed the ins and outs of the ban. But that doesn’t mean the Patent Office isn’t using AI at allâ€"quite the opposite. According to WIRED, USPTO chief technology officer Jamie Holcombe sent out a memo to Patent Office employees in April 2023. It prohibited workers from using generative AI tools for work due to the system’s “bias, unpredictability, and malicious behavior.†Holcombe said that the Patent Office is “committed to pursuing innovation with our agency†and “working to bring these capabilities to the office in a responsible way.†That same month, Scott Beliveauâ€"the USPTO’s Branch Chief of Advanced Analyticsâ€"parroted the language of Holcombe’s memo in an interview with Forbes. “We are as committed to pursuing innovation within our agency,†Beliveau told Forbes when asked about how the Patent Office was working to minimize the risks of AI. Beliveau told Forbes that his office wasn’t allowed to use LLMs at all. “We started mitigating the risks of LLMs by prohibiting our employees and contractors from using generative AI tools,†he said. “This immediate action was taken while we continue to explore ways to bring LLM capabilities to the agency in a responsible manner that serves America’s innovators.†This does not mean that the Patent Office is ignoring AI. The Patent Office examines millions of legal documents every year and it has admitted it’s using AI tools to help with the work. “Patent examiners are performing AI-enabled prior art searches using features like More Like This Document (MLTD) and Similarity Search, in the Office's Patents End-to-End (PE2E) Search tool,†it said in a document detailing its exhaustive use of AI published in the Federal Register. “Patent practitioners are increasingly relying on AI-based tools to research prior art, automate the patent application review process, and to gain insights into examiner behavior.†In addition to its own use of AI, the Patent Office knows that the genie is out of the bottle regarding generative AI submissions to its office. “The capabilities of these tools continue to grow, and there is no prohibition against using these computer tools in drafting documents for submission to the USPTO,†it said in the Federal Register document. “Nor is there a general obligation to disclose to the USPTO the use of such tools.†The Patent Office’s press secretary also told WIRED that USPTO employees can use generative AI tools within an internal testing environment. “Innovators from across the USPTO are now using the AI Lab to better understand generative AI's capabilities and limitations and to prototype AI-powered solutions to critical business needs,†the USPTO told WIRED. Government policies regarding the use of generative AI are all over the place. The USPTO and the Department of Defense are both forward-thinking, compared to many of their peers. In September, multiple agencies published reports on how they’re using AI, and the results weren’t great. Adoption is slow across the board. The agencies don’t have enough money or talent to develop their own tools. The Department of Energy, the agency in charge of America’s nuclear weapons, whined that it didn’t have enough graphics cards. Meanwhile, the Patent Office has been plugging away at this problem for years. It rolled out its own internal search tool several years ago. “While the USPTO is committed to maximizing AI's benefits and seeing them distributed broadly across society, the USPTO recognizes the need, through technical mitigations and human governance, to cabin the risks arising from the use of AI in practice before the USPTO,†it said in its guidance memo.

US Patent Office Bans In-House GenAI Use | PYMNTS.com

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has reportedly banned staff from using generative artificial intelligence (GenAI). The ban has been in place since last April, with the patent office citing security concerns along with the tendency of some tools to display "bias, unpredictability and malicious behavior," Wired reported Tuesday (Nov. 19), citing an internal memo. Jamie Holcombe, the chief information officer of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), wrote that the agency is "committed to pursuing innovation" while still "working to bring these capabilities to the office in a responsible way." Paul Fucito, USPTO press secretary, clarified that employees can use "state-of-the-art generative AI models" at work, but not within the office' internal testing environment. "Innovators from across the USPTO are now using the AI Lab to better understand generative AI's capabilities and limitations and to prototype AI-powered solutions to critical business needs," Fucito wrote in an email. Outside of the testing environment, USPTO staff are prohibited from using AI programs like OpenAI's ChatGPT or Anthropic's Claude to carry out work tasks. Last year's memo also forbids workers from using any outputs from these tools, such as AI-generated images or videos. However, USPTO staff can use some approved AI programs, like those within the agency's public database for looking up registered patents and patent applications, the report said. This news places USPTO in the company of several other federal agencies trying to ensure the proper use of AI. For example, PYMNTS reported last month on a meeting convened by the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division to promote the coordination of AI and civil rights. Experts at that gathering said that auditing can play a role in preventing, investigating, monitoring and remedying algorithmic bias in AI. "Auditing is used to verify that algorithms generate accurate results, as opposed to reflecting historical bias against protected classes," a readout from the meeting said. Also Tuesday, PYMNTS wrote about the concerns that America's outdated power grid may not be able to handle growing AI usage. "If the U.S. only relies on traditional approaches to expand the country's power infrastructure to meet AI infrastructure's voracious appetite for power, the U.S. will fall behind on its plans to lead in AI globally," Allan Schurr, chief commercial officer at energy transition company Enchanted Rock, told PYMNTS. "Delays in adding new transmission and generation capacity, which can range from three to 10-plus years, will force companies to seek out alternative locations to support AI infrastructure."