This week the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced rollout of an Automated Search Pilot Program (ASP). The pilot begins October 20, 2025. See, Notice at 90 Fed. Reg. 48161, Oct. 8, 2025.
How It Works
In the pilot, the USPTO will perform an automated prior art search against a pending application. The Office will automatically generate a pre-examination search report called an Automated Search Results Notice (ASRN). The search will be carried out by an internal Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool. The AI tool will use the classification (CPC symbol) of the application and the parts of the patent application for context. A similarity search will be performed across a number of databases available to the USPTO. These databases include U.S. and international patents and patent publications. The tool will further rank search results based on relevancy. The ASRN sent to applicants will list up to 10 documents in a Form PTO-892 listing style with document identification information.
An applicant is not required to respond to the ASRN. If the applicant does choose to respond, they may either timely file a preliminary amendment or request deferred examination under existing practice. An applicant may even elect to expressly abandon and request return of at least search fees.
Who is Eligible
Only original, noncontinuing, non-provisional utility applications which are electronically filed on or after Oct. 20, 2025 can participate. All technologies are eligible. The Office will initially accept up to 1,600 applications including at least 200 applications per Tech Center.
To participate, an applicant must electronically file a Petition under 37 C.F.R. 1.182 along with a petition fee (currently $450 for large entity, $180 for small entity).
Benefits and Drawbacks
Identification of prior art early in the patent examination is generally helpful to applicants. However, many applicants already have access to private AI tools that perform substantially similar searches. The petition fee is also an additional cost that may not be justified particularly given the USPTO’s plan to only provide a ranked listing of search results without patentability analysis. Examiners are instructed to review the ASRN search results like other documents in Office search files. There is also no guarantee that the references will even appear on the face of a later issued patent unless the Examiner or the Applicant identify them.
Other Nitty Gritty
The USPTO indicates its AI automated search tool is trained using publicly available patent data as well as classification data, document citations and human-related similarity. To reduce bias, the training data excludes applicant, inventor and assignee information. No exact closure date is set for the pilot but the Office promises to publish an expected closure date in advance.
Looking Ahead
The USPTO’s plan to publish updates on its website on the usage of the pilot across different Tech Centers may help applicants gain confidence in the program. This would help assess interest across mechanical, electrical and chemical arts. Applicants may also view this search pilot as a positive first step to gain an initial report quickly -- especially in the face of an ongoing pendency backlog at the USPTO. Many patent filers, however, will likely hold off until a future pilot produces an automated search report with patentability analysis like international PCT-style search reports. Regardless, we may look back and see this pilot as a first step toward automating much of U.S. patent examination with AI trained tools.
By: Michael Messinger and Mike Stojsavljevic