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5 Challenges for IP Professionals in the Next 5 Years—and How to Overcome Them
AI and IP: 4 Recommended Actions for IP Professionals
To prepare effectively for an AI-enabled future, IP professionals should actively familiarize themselves with AI’s capabilities to understand the potential use cases, according to our IP Industry Outlook research.
Our research reveals the top three areas for AI adoption in the IP profession to be:
When considering trademark respondents only, the top three tasks are search (91%), watch (53%), and office action response management (51%).
—>Discover all the use cases for AI in IP by exploring Questel’s AI solutions for IP professionals, including specialist AI assistants for patent preparation and prosecution and trademark productivity.
With many questions surrounding quality, transparency, and security still to be answered, IP professionals should “take care” when choosing suppliers and solutions, according to our IP Industry Outlook research.
Has the emergence of AI solutions for IP influenced your choice of IP provider?
If yes, for which IP services or software (top 6)?
- 1. IP Search & Watch (83%—up from 59% in 2024)
- 2. IP Landscape Analysis (68%)
- 3. Patent Translation (49%)
- 4. IP Management Software (43%)
- 5. IP Filing & Prosecution (30%)
- 6. Online Brand Protection (25%)
While AI offers many opportunities for IP professionals, the need to find the right balance between AI and human expertise was one of the biggest concerns of participants in our industry research in both 2024 and 2025.
- Most embraced the idea that AI could remove “dull” and “admin-heavy” processes and “democratize assistant-level repetitive tasks” to save time and free up resources to add value through expertise.
- While respondents across all IP disciplines shared concerns about accuracy and transparency, many were concerned that AI solutions could usurp key areas of competence, such as the “generation of legal opinions or any tasks that require intelligence” or could negatively impact their roles by “removing parts that we consider creative and enjoy performing.”
- Others predict that as AI technologies evolve, the challenge will become "identifying what added value a human can have," including the need to upskill IP professionals to maximize the latest tools.
While our research participants emphasized that confidentiality and data privacy were as critical as quality when choosing an AI-based solution, many we interviewed for this research shared that they did not always have the resources or stakeholder support in-house to assess or verify the security of the available technologies.
With AI evolving so quickly, many felt that their AI policies (if they had them) were also now out of date. For this reason, most prefer the flexibility and availability of a secure software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering (53%) “from a trusted partner” to on-premises hosting models (18%). Another 24% stipulate that data and processing geolocation should be in their country (29% have no preference).
Which is your preferred hosting model for AI solutions?
- Challenge #2. IP Software for Professionals: Converting Information into Oversight
With multiple data points to consider, many IP professionals who participated in our research felt overloaded by the volume of data, documents, and emails they needed to analyze and process in their day-to-day roles. While existing IP software provided some insightful IP analyses and reports, most IP professionals are eager for providers of IP services and tools to deliver more innovative solutions that will help them showcase IP value, realize greater efficiencies, and drive down the total costs of IP management.
In particular, IP professionals are frustrated they must use so many different channels to manage their IP portfolios and are looking to their suppliers to enable them to manage all their needs via a single platform. IP service and technology providers must now respond to their growing demands for greater innovation, interoperability, and integration of services through technology.
IP Software for IP Professionals: Areas for Improvement
Alongside their calls for greater innovation, IP professionals most want to see improved portfolio analytics from suppliers—in particular, when it comes to delivering the rapid insights they need to make informed renewal, opposition, and budgeting decisions. The top five ‘essential or important’ analytics are:
- 1. Pricing/tracking (64%)
- 2. Budget/forecasting (63%)
- 3. Easy renewal decisions (57%)
- 4. Fast opposition decisions (53%)
- 5. Case success rates (51%)
Which types of portfolio analytics would you value most?
Download the Full Report on the Impact of AI on the IP Sector
For our report 'Pathways to Productivity: AI in IP', we consulted more than 500 IP professionals to assess:
- Industry enthusiasm for predictive and generative AI solutions for IP,
- The views of IP professionals on the advantages and disadvantages of existing tools,
- Where IP owners would most like to see investment in technology in the next five years, and
- How IP service and technology providers can improve their offerings to better serve their needs.
- Challenge #4. Achieving Cost and Efficiency Gains
With IP filings and enforcement budgets projected to rise in the next five years, according to our 2024 report (see below), finding cost and efficiency gains will become even more crucial, so it’s little surprise that “greater efficiency in IP administrative processes” is one of the top three developments requested by IP professionals in the next five years.
Do you plan to increase your IP filing and enforcement budgets?
This is another area where IP professionals are looking to technology to provide the answer; for example, through the “aggregation” of IP services and data through a single platform, as well as greater digitalization of official data, documents, and processes.