DorothyAI, a Pittsburgh-based legal tech startup with ties to Carnegie Mellon University, has launched AskDot, a generative AI tool that compares proposed patents to pre-existing ones.
Sharon Shofner-Meyer, president and chairman of DorothyAI, said while the process of filing a patent is expensive and time consuming, that work is often done for nothing, with well over a majority of patents rejected.
"Only a third of them get granted, and this can really help in understanding whether you should even file a patent," Shofner-Meyer said. "[AskDot] can tell you what's out there, and if what's out there is something similar to what you have, then you're really not going to be able to be successful in getting a patent."
She noted the process of filing a single patent can cost on average between $10,000 and $20,000, which is "a lot of capital for a small business," but also a cost that larger companies want to avoid.
"I've worked with large, very large multinational corporations, and they have huge budgets devoted to patent filings and they're always looking for ways to refine their decision making," Shofner-Meyer said. "AI is particularly powerful in managing large, massive datasets, and global patent data consists of terabytes and terabytes of data. Our particular repository has 130 million patents, and trying to understand and get insights from that data is difficult, so it's particularly suited to AI, which can transform data into insights that really help make decisions."
While not every employee of the company is based in Pittsburgh, Shofner-Meyer credited the Pittsburgh region for helping the startup grow. She called co-founder and board member Michael Shamos, who also serves as Director of CMU's MS in Artificial Intelligence and Innovation program, "instrumental in keeping" the company's pace with the rapidly advancing AI sector.
"We're super excited about the adoption of AI within our legal community, and we feel very excited to be sort of a part of this wave," she said. "I don't think there's ever been a more exciting time to be part of legal tech."
